Form one student commits suicide in Bulawayo

Mimmy

14/03/2023

A Form One pupil at a private school in the Luveve suburb, of Bulawayo, committed suicide by hanging on Sunday evening. The girl reportedly hanged herself in her bedroom at around 7 PM in the presence of her 8-year-old sister.

Her 19-year-old brother told the Chronicle that she did not leave a suicide note or tell anyone if she had any challenges. He said:

My sister was a very quiet person but she was always smiling. She had gone out and met my father by the corner and asked him where he was going.

My father told her he was going to buy some relish. When she arrived at the house, there was my little sister.

She took some plastic-like rope and hung herself from the roof truss in her bedroom. She didn’t leave any message nor did she say anything to my younger sister.

When my younger sister went to tell the people who lodge in the house at the back, it was already too late as she had died. This is painful.

The late girl’s uncle said they were informed about the tragic incident on Sunday. He said:

The girl’s mother died last year in January in South Africa, and what pained us was that the father refused for the children to go and bury their mother at our village in the Gwamba area in Nkayi.

This suicide is troubling to us and we’re forced to think about many things. We suspect that maybe the girl was being abused and just suffered in silence because there’s no other way to explain this painful incident.

I just arrived and I’m waiting for the father to arrive so that we can talk but I’m not happy with the disrespect he has shown to our family.

A pastor’s wife from the nearby Baptist Church who preferred anonymity said they had been supporting the children together with neighbours in the area after both parents left the children for South Africa. She said;

I’m pained by this and I wish she could wake up but I know it can’t happen. She was a member of our church but didn’t attend church on Sunday after a relative visited them.

In life iminwe ayilingani but we supported them wherever we could. The father was working hard to provide for them but it was difficult.

The children stayed for a long time by themselves when their parents were in South Africa and the father only returned sometime last year and we were assisting them.

Bulawayo Provincial ZRP spokesperson Inspector Abednico Ncube confirmed the suicide to the Chronicle, saying investigations into the case are ongoing.