Six-year-old boy hailed a hero after being stabbed to death while attempting to defend his mother from a violent rapist
Mother recounts the devastating last moments of her little boy who saved her from her attacker
A SIX-YEAR-OLD boy has been stabbed to death with a broken bottle after trying to stop a man from raping his mother in South Africa.
Kutlwano Garesape was brutally murdered when his mother's attacker turned on him, stabbing him with the bottle before using a stick to kill the six-year-old boy in the Northern Cape.
Mother Segomotso Garesape said she was devastated at the loss of her son, describing her desperation to help her son who had saved her.
She said she and her two sons, including six-year-old Garesape and eight-year-old son Thabiso, had missed the morning bus to the Tau Dirora School just outside Jan Kempdorp and had decided to walk when the attack took place.
Garesape said the man had tried to speak to the family, asking for money, before grabbing her shoulder.
She said: “Kutlwano slapped the man across the face and told him to let go of me. He kept on screaming ‘Let go of my mummy, it is my mummy’ while slapping and kicking the man.
“Thabiso was scared but Kutlwano kept on defending me. I could feel that the man was pulling up my skirt with his other hand and realised that wanted to rape me in front of my children."
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In a harrowing account of the brutal attack, Garesape said she had managed to kick away her attacker when he turned on her son.
Telling the little boy that he talked too much, the heartless attacker threw him into the air before strangling the six-year-old and stabbing him.
Unable to find a weapon and unable to overpower the man, the mother desperately ran for help.
She said: “I heard my child crying out for me and I saw him trying to defend himself with his hands. The man just kept on stabbing him," .
The mother was finally able to find help but the attacker then ran away, throwing her son onto the railway track.
Devastated Garesape said she held her bleeding son in his last moments.
Northern Cape Premier Sylvia Lucas released a statement, expressing her condolences for the family.
She said: "This senseless and insensitive attack comes during a month when we actively advocate for the rights of women. There can be no justifiable reason or explanation for one person to inflect so much pain and suffering on an innocent child.
"Kutlwano had his whole life ahead of him and one merciless act destroyed the life of a child, that of his parents and the community at large."
A 32-year-old man has since been arrested and charged with murder.
The man appeared in the Jan Kempdorp Magistrate's Court on Monday.
The case was postponed to August 22 for a formal bail application.
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