Pascalinah Kabi
A NINE-YEAR-OLD Mazenod boy is lucky to be alive after his own father allegedly stabbed him in the chest with a knife a fortnight ago.
The father, who is now on the run, is said to have asked the boy if his mother was involved in an extra-marital affair and the boy professed ignorance of the alleged infidelity. His response earned him the stabbing.
The boy and his five-year-old brother had been left in the care of their father when he was stabbed. This after the father had chased away his wife for alleged infidelity.
According to the victim’s uncle, Samuel Moroahae, on the day of the stabbing, the father sent his younger son to borrow a brush from a neighbour’s house. He then called his older son and quizzed him about his mothers’ alleged infidelity.
“The boy told his father that whenever they visited her parents’ home in Ha-Teko, she slept in the same room with her children instead of being with another man as he alleged,” Mr Moroahae said yesterday.
“The response angered him so much that he took a blanket and attempted to suffocate the boy with it. The boy fainted and then he stabbed him to the left of his chest and locked him inside and left. When the father left the house, he met the younger child who asked where his brother was and he gave the impression that he had gone to school and the younger child rushed off to school.”
When the stabbed child regained consciousness, he managed to get out of the house and walked to Ha-Teko to report to his mother, but while on the way, he met a peer who raised alarm on seeing him soaking in blood.
“My sister only received a call that her son had been rushed to hospital with a stab wound.”
The father was immediately arrested but was later released by the courts for the unavailability of a medical form. The doctor who attended to him had refused to sign a medical form saying he was unsure whether or not the boy would survive.
However, the victim is now out of danger and has now been discharged from hospital.
But Mr Moroahae said his sister and the rest of the family were now living in fear.
“The father was arrested by officers from Mazenod Police Station and he has appeared in court. However, the magistrate released him because of the lack of a medical report. The doctor who attended to my nephew said he could not sign a medical form when he was unsure if he would live or die.
“This has negatively affected us because the police had done their job and we were happy but now we are living in fear because we are worried that he can come and finish the boy off or hurt my sister.
“My sister received a call from the doctor on Thursday and he said he had signed the medical form. However, this seems too late because the suspect had already fled when the police went to his house to re-arrest him. The police have assured us that they will not stop looking for him but that cannot allay our fears.”
Mr Moroahae said his sister was shaken as her husband is abusive and violent.
“My sister is shaken because her husband is abusive and violent. So abusive is he that at one time he assaulted my sister and raped her in front of his minor children. This is a behavior that we have struggled with as a family,” Mr Moroahae said.
Efforts to get a comment from police spokesperson, Sub-Inspector ‘Mareabetsoe Mofoka, were unsuccessful this weekend as her phone rang unanswered.