The Police spokesperson, Adele Myburgh, tells OFM News a 15-year-old is being assessed by social workers after his parents handed him over to the police this morning after learning of the murder incident.

She says the police in Mooinooi near Brits are investigating the murder of a 15-year-old who was allegedly stabbed by another 15-year-old learner on Monday, 10 June 2019.

She adds it is alleged that the deceased, Fellies Sithembile, was on his way home from school when the suspect, who is a learner at another school, stabbed him with a knife. Myburgh says the incident has since left the provincial commissioner, Baile Motswenyane, shocked.

Myburgh says according to information available at this stage, the victim was then taken to a local clinic by a passer-by, but he succumbed to his injuries. “The suspect, who fled the scene after the incident, was handed to the police at approximately 08:30 today, 11 June 2019, by his parents. He will be processed in terms of the Child Justice Act, 2008 (Act No. 75 of 2008).” She says in the light of police involvement in school safety in 2018, the incident left the police baffled.

Myburgh says it’s not yet clear as to when the pupil will appear before the children’s court.

OFM News previously reported on the death of an eight-year-old schoolboy who died in hospital after he was allegedly beaten by a 17-year-old boy at a primary school in Koster a few weeks ago.

In March, a 13-year-old grade 8 pupil was hospitalised after a knife was stuck in her stomach after she was stabbed by another fellow pupil in Rustenburg School. In 2018 a grade one learner died after being stabbed multiple times allegedly by a grade 11 learner from another school. And a thirteen-year-old grade 5 learner at the Mateane Primary School in Diretsane village, near Delareyville in the North West, also died after he was stabbed in the chest by his grade mate, a 14-year-old.

A teacher was also stabbed to death by a learner at a school in Dinokana outside Zeerust in 2018. Myburgh says the Provincial Commissioner, Baile Motswenyane, expressed her shock about the incident and others that were recently committed by learners against fellow learners in the province. Motswenyane says that while the police are working hard to implement crime prevention programmes at schools, the public has a responsibility to assist in curbing violence that is being experienced, through moral regeneration and other relevant programmes.

OFM News