A 26-year-old man from South Africa’s Eastern Cape province will appear in court in the Amatole district municipality on murder charges on Tuesday after allegedly axing his girlfriend to death, police said.
The suspect was arrested on Sunday night at Mankazana Farm in Balfour, in the Raymond Mhlaba municipality after a case of murder was reported, Eastern Cape police spokesperson Captain Siphokazi Mawisa said on Monday.
“It is alleged that the suspect who is the boyfriend to the deceased had an argument with the deceased and assaulted her with an axe. She died on the scene,” Mawisa said.
Police found the woman’s body upon arrival at the scene and the suspect was placed under arrested and charged with murder. He is due to appear in the Seymour magistrate’s court.
The unidentified woman’s death comes as South Africa begins its annual commemoration of Women’s Month in August and Mawisa emphasized that those implicated in crimes of violence against women would face the full might of the law.
Acting Amatole district commissioner Brigadier Ngangema Xakavu said the police service treated gender-based violence and femicide seriously and encouraged women subjected to assaults to apply for protection orders.
The Eastern Cape province has experienced a rise in the number of crimes against women in recent months, according to South African Police Service crimes statistics for the fourth quarter of 2020/2021.
For the period ending March 2021, the province saw a 21.5% (772 to 938) increase in the number of murders, with the majority of the crimes committed at the residence of either the perpetrator or the victim.
-African News Agency (ANA)
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