Africa-Press – Lesotho. A 19-year-old single mother, Relebohile Ntaote, was so incensed after her mother chastised her for coming home late. Her mother, Tselane Ntaote, was worried that her daughter who was in the habit of coming home late would once again fall pregnant out of wedlock.
But Relebohile would not take her mother’s counsel kindly. In a fit of rage, she went on to suffocate her six-month old son. This week, Ntaote appeared in the Qacha’s Nek magistrates’ court facing a charge of murder.
She was remanded in custody and is now awaiting a transfer to the High Court for bail application. Ntaote, who allegedly murdered her son on New Year’s Eve, will reappear for the second time for remand on Tuesday.
The crown alleges that Ntaote returned from a graduation ceremony on December 31 late, which infuriated her mother. Her mother allegedly reprimanded her for gallivanting at night adding that she was risking another pre-marital pregnancy.
Ntaote allegedly took her child and went outside the house and when she came back later she handed the dead child to her sister, announcing that she had just killed it.
The sister is said to have thought Ntaote was joking but when she examined the baby she realised that she had indeed killed him. The village chief was then called and Ntaote was handed over to the police.
When thepost visited the family home yesterday, an inconsolable Tselane was wailing saying she could not believe what her daughter had done. Tselane was also uncomfortable that people kept coming to her home because of the infanticide.
“Why do you people keep coming?” Tselane said, weeping uncontrollably.
“Is my child the first one to do this? I’m confused and am angry!” she said. Tselane was also worried that she did not have any money to hold a funeral for her dear grandchild.
“Now that the police have taken the corpse with them I want them to bury the child themselves because I can’t afford to bury him,” she said, weeping loudly.
“They refused when I told them not to because I wanted to bury him on the same day.
” Tselane told thepost that she was in constant fights with her daughter for wandering out at night.
The village chief, Remaketse Naha, said he was worried with what happened in his village especially because Tselane migrated to his village without papers showing where she came from.
“I don’t know her previous chief and she has not brought the letter from her chief despite that I instructed her to do so,” Chief Naha said.
Chief Naha also complained that young women and girls in his village have developed the habit of sleeping around ever since road construction workers arrived in the area.
There is the Mpiti to Sehlaba-Thebe road construction, a five-year project that started two years ago, which has brought a lot of men unaccompanied by their wives.
“I’ve had young women and girls getting babies out of marriage in this village but ever since this road project started the situation has gotten out of control,” the chief said.
“Things are getting worse now because of these men working at the construction,” he said.
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