Mother breaks door open to save daughter from fire – Mmegi

Name of story: Mother breaks door open to save daughter from fire

Name of journalist: Patricia Maganu-Edwin

Name of publication: Mmegi

Date: 14 June 2011

Country: Botswana

Theme: Gender violence

Skills: Fairness

Genre: News

GEM classification : Gender aware

Description:

A  mother has told of how she had to break down the door of a hut to save her daughter from being burnt alive, in an attempted murder and arson case before the courts. The mother, Lucky Moseki told the court that she had to use an axe to chop down the door, which had been tied with wire, as the hut was being consumed by fire as she tried to save her daughter Besi Moseki.

Moseki is a witness in the attempted murder and arson case that occured in Dibete in February 2008. Moseki told the court that on the night in question she was sleeping outside with her grandchilden while her daughter was sleeping in the hut. She said that moments before the house burst into flames she had seen the accused, Patrick Shima Ramagala, in her yard.

She said that she had suspected that Ramagala was involved in a love affair with her daughter as they were always together and sometimes got into fights. Moseki said that she knew the accused person as he grew up in the neighbourhood where she stays. “I practically raised him,” she told the court. Moseki said that on the night in question she was woken up by cattle that had entered her yard . “I was sleeping outside so I woke up to chase them out of the yard and when I came back I saw the accused standing by the door where my daughter was sleeping and I told him to leave my yard as I had told him that I did not want him in my yard and he just walked away,” said Moseki.