Police mystified by Tutume boy death
Lesedi Mkhutshwa | Wednesday January 11, 2023 18:40
Badirwang said the missing boy’s body was found on Tuesday evening at Tjiripa area located at the North Western part of Tutume village. The area is approximately about 12 kilometres from the village. The police said only a postmortem will determine the cause of death. Badirwang said they are going to conduct a post mortem tomorrow (Thursday). Before the body of the boy was discovered there were speculations on social media that the boy was killed for ritual purposes while others felt that the child had drowned. “The boy was found lifeless and we do not know what caused his death .Therefore the post mortem will reveal all the details,” Badirwang indicated.
He said that the missing boy’s body was found by a group of youngsters who were herding livestock. “On Tuesday evening we received a report in the evening about a subject suspected to be a person floating on water. When we arrived at the scene we saw something floating on the river and the investigating team took some pictures of the scene,” he added. Badirwang further stated that they took the object out of the water and some of the missing boy uncles who were present and part of the search then confirmed that it was their nephew. He said that the body of the boy was then taken to Tutume primary hospital where he was certified dead. Prior to receiving the report , No.15 district officer commanding said that they engaged on an intensive search for the missing boy. All the stakeholders engaged on the matter including Botswana Defence Force (BDF) searched as far as Makota, Matobo, Goshwe villages and surrounding areas using helicopters. On Monday, Badirwang said that the boy went missing on Friday when he was left alone at home.
He added that the boy was left alone on January 6 by her 18-year-old sister who went shopping at the village mall. The five-year-old boy was supposed to have relocated to start his standard one level at Pandamatenga Primary school on Tuesday when the first term began. When the police began their search on Saturday they discovered shoes belonging to the boy along Tutume River which is about 1.5 kilometres away from his home.