Nqobile Tshili Chronicle Reporter—
A 10-YEAR-OLD girl has been found hanged from a tree in Bulawayo’s Emganwini suburb. The body of Zwivhuya Buhle Mulaudzi, a Grade Five pupil at Senzangakhona Primary School in the same suburb, was found at 3:30PM yesterday by her elder sister. Devastated sister, Sibonginkosi Mulaudzi, 20, told how she raced out of their house half-dressed after a neighbour told of her grisly find while she was having a bath.
A devasted Sibonginkosi said the family was struggling to come to terms with young Buhle’s death as she did not seem troubled.
“I had just started bathing and I heard one of our neighbours saying Buhle had hanged herself,” she tearfully told Chronicle yesterday.
“In disbelief, I asked Mimi (her younger sister) to check on her. I called out for Mimi but she didn’t respond, then I had to dash out of the bathroom wrapped in just a towel to find Mimi untying her from a tree. Her body was still warm but I could feel that she was gone.”
Sibonginkosi said her sister was “just playing and laughing with no sign of distress”.
“We had just had our lunch and she ate hers without any problem. She asked for a chair which she took out of the house, and then came for a second but I stopped her,” she said.
Her aunt, Pauline Tshabi, said she was in disbelief that a child so young could kill herself in that way, adding that she was a “happy girl”.
Tshabi said she suspected foul play.
“They said the rope was not even tight, the tree is very short she would not have used a chair to climb that tree.
“The distance between the ground and the branch where she is supposed to have hanged herself is very short, shorter than her because she was tall,” said Tshabi.
When our news crew visited the family’s house last night, the child’s body was still lying under the tree where she allegedly hanged herself.
Scores of shocked residents had started visiting the family to pay their respects.
Police CID detectives arrived at the house shortly before 6PM to begin their investigations.
A 10-YEAR-OLD girl has been found hanged from a tree in Bulawayo’s Emganwini suburb. The body of Zwivhuya Buhle Mulaudzi, a Grade Five pupil at Senzangakhona Primary School in the same suburb, was found at 3:30PM yesterday by her elder sister. Devastated sister, Sibonginkosi Mulaudzi, 20, told how she raced out of their house half-dressed after a neighbour told of her grisly find while she was having a bath.
A devasted Sibonginkosi said the family was struggling to come to terms with young Buhle’s death as she did not seem troubled.
“I had just started bathing and I heard one of our neighbours saying Buhle had hanged herself,” she tearfully told Chronicle yesterday.
“In disbelief, I asked Mimi (her younger sister) to check on her. I called out for Mimi but she didn’t respond, then I had to dash out of the bathroom wrapped in just a towel to find Mimi untying her from a tree. Her body was still warm but I could feel that she was gone.”
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| The late Zwivhuya Buhle Mulaudzi |
“We had just had our lunch and she ate hers without any problem. She asked for a chair which she took out of the house, and then came for a second but I stopped her,” she said.
Her aunt, Pauline Tshabi, said she was in disbelief that a child so young could kill herself in that way, adding that she was a “happy girl”.
Tshabi said she suspected foul play.
“They said the rope was not even tight, the tree is very short she would not have used a chair to climb that tree.
“The distance between the ground and the branch where she is supposed to have hanged herself is very short, shorter than her because she was tall,” said Tshabi.
When our news crew visited the family’s house last night, the child’s body was still lying under the tree where she allegedly hanged herself.
Scores of shocked residents had started visiting the family to pay their respects.
Police CID detectives arrived at the house shortly before 6PM to begin their investigations.
