Police spokesperson, Ikobeng Hlubi, says the results of the post-mortem performed on Nthabiseng “Mingy” Makhoba are yet to be released, but it has been determined the schoolgirl was raped. This comes as Makhoba was laid to rest in a funeral service that took place at the Kagisanong Hall in the Free State capital on Friday, March 15. It was revealed at the funeral service that the primary schoolgirl would have turned eight years old on the same day that she was buried.

Mingy, as she was affectionately known, was a grade 2 learner at Tebello Primary School, in Rocklands, at the time of her death. She was last seen in the company of a friend and a fellow learner after school on Monday, March 4. Two days later, her body was discovered by Leabua Tjemolane and a group of his friends in an open field facing the Caleb Motshabi informal settlement casually named ‘Dinaweng’. The deceased resided in the Ipopeng township at the time of her death.

Free State Education Department spokesperson, Howard Ndaba, says district officials attended Makhoba’s funeral today and further sent his condolences to the family. Ndaba urges community members to work alongside police to find the seven-year-old’s murderer. “This is an innocent child who was brutally murdered”, laments the spokesperson. “We really want to convey our condolences not only to the family, but also to the fellow learners and teachers of the school where that learner was,” he concluded.

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