Wife accused of trying to eat unborn baby
By Tendai Gukutikwa
A MARANGE woman is up in arms with her husband and his second wife who incessantly accuse her of trying to eat their unborn baby through witchcraft.
Renika Mundandishe told presiding Mutare magistrate, Mrs Yeukai Chigodora that her husband, Augustine Diago and his second wife, Stembile Chakandiyamba were in the habit of harassing her as well as accusing her of witchcraft.
Mundandishe told the court that she was living in hell in her own matrimonial home since her husband and his new younger wife accuse her of witchcraft.
“Your Worship, Diago accuses me on several occasions of wanting to eat his unborn baby and Chakandiyamba accuses me of trying to kill our husband.
“Is that possible? Why would I want to kill Diago when he is also my husband? Won’t I be left a widow if he dies?
“They claim that I am a witch and that I am the one who ate their unborn baby when Chakandiyamba had a miscarriage. I was not the hand behind the miscarriage. It is not fair for them to blame me for whatever problems they encounter in their bedroom,” she said.
Diago, however, told the court that Mundandishe was the one who forced him to take a second wife.
“She is the one who forced me to have a second wife. I had refused, but she insisted that I should take Chakandiyamba as the second wife. Now that the new wife has three children with me, Mundandishe is now jealousy. She threatens to kill me and my unborn babies.
“I never labeled her a witch, but there is a Shona idiom that says ‘anyumwa bere nderake’. If she is suspecting that we accuse her of killing our baby, then that is her own fish to fry,” he explained.
Chakandiyamba insisted that Mundandishe had courted her on behalf of her husband and she had agreed.
Said Chakandiyamba: “I was told that she could no longer perform in bed and asked me to come as the second wife. It is shocking for her to say I am labeling her a witch, yet she is the one who approached me to save her marriage as the second wife.
“Mundandishe is just jealousy because I am living happily with our husband and that we already have children.”
Mrs Chigodora ordered the trio to go and live in peace with each other and warned them against any unnecessary squabbling. Manica Post
