The brutal murder of Bontle Mashiyane from Mganduzweni, Mpumalanga, has spotlighted the prevalence of witchcraft in modern South Africa.
What happened to Bontle Mashiyane?
The six-year-old girl went missing on 30 April 2022 while playing with friends near her home in Mgaduzweni, a rural community situated near White River and around 17km away from the centre city of Nelspruit.
It was a Saturday afternoon, according to her family. When it came for Little Bontle to make it back home before sunset, she was nowhere to be found.
The Mashiyane family filed a missing person report that day and for weeks, police struggled to find a trace of the little girl. The investigation, however, caught a break this past weekend when a male suspect was arrested in Kabokweni, around 26.7km away from Mguduzweni, in connection with Mashiyane’s disappearance.
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The suspect, according to Mpumalanga Police Provincial Commissioner Semakaleng Manamela, confessed to acting as one of at least three perpetrators in the six-year-old’s murder.
Shockingly, the alleged killer pointed to Mashiyane’s neighbours, a woman and another suspect, as co-murderers. Further interrogation of the neighbours yielded a big break when the woman, identified as the mastermind behind the murder, led detectives to a bushy area near the Mashiyane’s home, where Little Bontle’s mutilated body had been dumped.
A post mortem report on Mashiyane’s cause of death has yet to be turned in to detectives, but based on the condition of her body, there’s a growing belief that the six-year-old may have been a victim of black magic.
Murmurs in the community claim Mashiyane may have been the third known victim of the neighbours. As reported by Daily Sun, police are looking at the 2019 murder of the Qibi sisters whose mutilated bodies were found dumped near a river stream in Mgaduzweni.
Moreover, according to Commissioner Manamela, the first suspect is crucial in solving at least four more children murders he has confessed to. It’s believed the man and Bontle’s neighbours were contracted by traditional diviners to collect children’s organs for muti rituals.
“The mastermind behind these killings is a woman, a person who is expected to care for and nourish these children, and she happened to be her neighbour Bontle used to play with her 10-year-old child,” the police commissioner said.
The suspects in the murder of Bontle Mashiyane are due to appear before a KaBokweni Magistrate’s Court on Monday, facing charges of rape, murder and kidnapping.
