A 40-year-old South African teacher, Josiah Thubane, has pleaded guilty to abducting and killing a 13-year-old girl with albinism for rituals commonly known as ‘Muti’. Gabisile was killed after some men abducted her from her home at Hlalakahle in eMalahleni area of Mpumalanga in 2018. Her 15-month-old baby cousin, Nkosikhona Ngwenya, who wasn’t an albino was also abducted but later thrown alive off a bridge to drown in a dam near the N4 highway.
Anna Shabane, mother of 13-year-old Gabisile revealed that the incident led to a beefed up security in her home as she gave her testimony at the Middelburg High Court on Tuesday August 20. She also said her family was living in fear as her daughter’s murder destroyed her family.
“I was close to my daughter, and her twin sister Khanyisile has been more shattered by her sister’s passing. The manner in which she was killed makes me feel that they should have taken me and not her,” she said sobbing.
The aggrieved mother also disclosed that she still has flashbacks of the day she found her daughter’s headless and decomposed body with missing body parts.
“I replay the vivid images in my head over and over again and I keep hoping she would come back. She was young and had a bright future ahead of her,” Shabane said.
“I was helped by the municipality after my family was attacked to build a wall around my home and to put in cameras, but my community accused me of selling my children for money to renovate my home” she added.