The ManicaPost
Blessing Gondokondo Weekender Correspondent —
HER husband cheated on her with a neighbour and she decided to end the marriage. She moved on as she was slowly seeing herself in a polygamous set-up.
Little did she know that by trying to find peace elsewhere and stay with her parents, she had disturbed a beehive.
What followed thereafter was a horror script which she can now recount just because the heavens were on her side when she faced a brutal and blood-chilling domestic violence attack that left her for dead.
The survivor of the terrifying Kubepeta Village July domestic violence incident that shocked many in Mutasa District and resonated nationwide, this week gave a detailed account of how she was attacked by her husband.
The woman, who identified herself as Mutoni, narrated her ordeal to traditional leaders who attended a domestic violence workshop in the district recently.
Those in attendance shook their heads in disbelief, while some were left with teary eyes as Mutoni chronicled how she was attacked by the father of her two children.
Her now late husband, Kudzanai Nyamunokora, stabbed her 17 times with a knife before using the same to stab himself in the chest and later hang self with a wire from a tree.
“It all started when my late husband started having an extra marital affair with a widow who is our neighbour. This woman had just lost her husband when she started sleeping with my husband.
“Ever since we got married my husband never worked.
“I was the breadwinner, getting income from a tuck-shop that I operated. My husband was subsequently forced to marry his girlfriend after the woman’s relatives caught them co-habiting,” she said and added:
“He came home and announced that he was taking a second wife and I did not agree with the proposal. I decided to move out and stay with my parents. I took my two children, some furniture and also relocated the tuck-shop.
“After two days he followed me at my parents’ home in a bid to convince me to come back home. I refused. He then told me that he cannot live in poverty. Moments later, he also said he had come prepared. I did not understand what he meant. He then went into the bedroom where I was sleeping, leaving me outside.”
Mutoni followed him and all hell broke loose.
“I followed him into bedroom and I saw him standing there motionless. He suddenly pulled a knife and stabbed me in the stomach. I lost count of how many times he sliced me with the knife. It was swift and I lost consciousness. In the stomach I sustained seven deep cuts and nine more on the head.
“He then turned the knife on himself and drove it deep into his chest. At that point I was struggling to move. I was now motionless.
“Frustrated that he had failed to take his life, I saw him committing suicide by hanging from a tree with a wire.
“Neighbours rushed to try to save his life, but it was too late because the wire had slit open his throat. He died instantly,” she said.
Following the brutal attack Mutoni was rushed to Mutare Provincial Hospital.
“I thought I could not make it because I was in bad shape. I told my sister who was with me in the ambulance to look after my children, but I recovered and what is left now are the scars from the attack,” she said.
Mutoni thanked the Ministry of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development which paid her hospital bills totalling $1 832 as well as her relatives and friends who stood by her when she badly needed their comfort.
