A 19-year-old young woman had to pretend to be dead to survive after she was allegedly strangled, beaten and mutilated by two unknown men, cutting her buttock and genital area before dumping her in a canal near still water.
The men reportedly left her for dead at Luve on Monday night. Bleeding, traumatised and struggling to stay on her feet, the young woman said she eventually managed to escape from where her attackers had left her and staggered to a nearby car wash, where she pleaded for help.
Her ordeal, which she recounted in an interview, has raised fresh concerns about the safety of women walking home after dark and renewed painful questions about crimes involving the mutilation of human bodies in the kingdom.
Although the circumstances of the attack have prompted suspicions of a possible ritual motive, police have not established such a motive, and it remains unclear why the perpetrators targeted her. The young woman whose identity is being withheld to protect her privacy, dignity and safety as a survivor of extreme violence, said the attack started shortly after she knocked off work at about 7:30pm. Her journey home, which ordinarily takes approximately 15 minutes, turned into a desperate fight for survival.
She said she was walking along the road near Baceth Hardware at Luve when two men approached her on foot. Initially, she assumed they were merely men attempting to engage her in the kind of unwanted attention women sometimes encounter while walking along the road. However, one of the men suddenly grabbed her by the throat and strangled her, while his accomplice repeatedly punched her in the stomach.
Overpowered and unable to defend herself against the two men, she said one of them took her cellphone and removed her shoes. They allegedly dragged her into a bushy area across the road, near the river, where they waited until the passing traffic had cleared.
It was there, she said, that the assault took an even more horrifying turn.
The men allegedly stripped her naked as she struggled to resist them. One struck her in the eye while the other continued strangling her.
“They started cutting off one of my buttocks and my private parts,” she recounted.
At one point, the men allegedly ordered her to expose her breasts. Fearing that they intended to mutilate them too, she begged them to allow her to do so herself.
She said the attackers subsequently tied her up. As she struggled to breathe, she realised that continuing to fight might cost her life. She made a decision that she believes ultimately saved her.
“I felt as though I was running out of breath. I decided to stop fighting and pretend that I was dead. That was when they stopped cutting me,” she said.
While lying motionless, she heard one of the men suggesting that they should lift her and throw her into a canal near still water. They allegedly carried out the suggestion, leaving her there in the belief that she was dead.
After lying there for some time, she regained her senses and quickly got up. She said her body still felt hot and she could not immediately feel the pain of her injuries. However, she realised that she was drenched in blood.
She is currently receiving medical attention. The survivor said she did not recognise either of her attackers because she had never seen them before.
The Royal Eswatini Police Service confirmed the attack, saying a report had been received from the teen’s family.
Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Senior Superintendent Phindile Zwane said the 19-year-old had been attacked by two men at Luve on Monday night. She confirmed that the woman was in hospital and that no arrests had been made at the time of reporting.
“Police investigations are still ongoing,” Zwane said.
The survivor’s family suspects that the attack may have been ritual-related, questioning why the assailants allegedly mutilated her after taking her cellphone and why they left her only after believing she was dead.
