ZVIMBA – A two-year old girl was gruesomely murdered, thrown into Hunyani River,
found floating 3.5 kilometres away from her home, burnt and with parts of her body
missing.
The child, Shantel Ndoro, was last seen playing with five other children under a tree
at her house and no one knows what happened or who took her after the other
children left her.
Shantel was reported missing and was discovered five days later in Hunyani River
with her private parts, eyes and nose missing. Her body was covered in oil and was
burnt.
Relatives also discovered foot prints near the banks of the river where her body was
found dead.
Her grandmother, well-known as Amai Barbra Undi (43) who stays in Karoi, says
there were a lot of people present at the family homestead since they were
performing a traditional ritual called (kurova Guva) for their two relatives. She was
the one who discovered the body.
She explained how the little girl had been playing with the other children. Her mother,
who was not around because of work, came home that evening to find that her child
was missing.
“Shantel was left playing with other older kids before they left her under the tree to
catch termites (ishwa) around five in the evening. No one knows what happened to
her after that and her mother came home from work only to find out that her child
was missing. We searched for her for five days but to no avail, only to discover her
body near the Hunyani community garden, three kilometres away from where she
was last seen.
We also discovered that there were foot prints near the area where we discovered
her lifeless body,” explained the grandmother.
The matter was reported to the police who came and retrieved the body from the
river; that is when they discovered the burns and a missing nose, eyes and also her
private parts.
The Zimbabwe Republic Police national spokesperson, Assistant Commissioner
Paul Nyathi confirmed the gruesome murder explaining that two male relatives have
already been arrested in connection with the matter.
“We cannot believe that a two-year-old child would have been able to walk such a
long distance. Shantel must have been abducted from where she was playing and
her body parts harvested. Inyaya inotirwadza, kuurairwa mwana usina chawatadza,”
Shantel’s grandmother said as she mourned the loss of her granddaughter.
However, investigations are still in the progress and police are urging parents and
guardians to keep maximum oversight over young lives.
