Woman nabbed for ‘axing’ 21-day-old son to death

By Leonard Ncube

A Hwange woman has been arrested after she allegedly fatally axed her three weeks old baby and hid the body in a bedroom hut.It is not yet clear why Bokani Shoko (25) from Champempo Village killed her baby.

Shoko struck the infant twice on the back of the neck at around 4PM last Thursday.

Shoko appeared before Hwange magistrate Mrs Portia Mhlanga-Moyo on Friday facing infanticide charges.

She was not asked to plead.

The magistrate remanded her in custody to February 23 and ordered that she be examined by two psychiatrists to ascertain her mental state.

Prosecuting, Mr Onias Nyathi said the blood stained body of the infant was found in Shoko’s bedroom hut.“The accused struck her three weeks old baby twice at the back of the neck with a small axe causing its death. The body was recovered in a pool of blood in the accused’s bedroom hut,” said the prosecutor.

The court expects that a mental examination will have been done on Shoko when she returns to court on February 21.

In 2014, a woman, then aged 22, also from Hwange district allegedly beheaded her eight-month-old daughter using a knife before attempting to commit suicide.

Louislonh Gurajena Siziba was charged with the murder of her daughter Nomawethu Ncube.

Siziba, who later appeared in court, was sent to Mlondolozi Psychiatric Centre at Khami Maximum Prison after it was found that she had a mental illness.

She killed the baby following a dispute over paternity of the child with her boyfriend who was in South Africa. The Chronicle