WUNRN
Fiji Times
FIJI - BABY GIRL ALLEGEDLY MURDERED
IN FATHER'S RITUALISTIC EXORCISM
By THERESA RALOGAIVAU
August 10, 2009
Battered to Death:14-Month-Old
Sadikuini Yalewavukivuki
A BUA community is
reeling from the shocking murder of a baby girl who was allegedly bashed to
death by her father in a ritualistic sacrifice to "save his district
spiritually".
Fourteen-month-old Sadikuini
Yalewavukivuki was allegedly murdered in front of her mother Valetina Dimae,
29, at their home in the
Reliving the incident, a
distraught Mrs Dimae said her husband locked them up inside their bedroom and
repeatedly punched their daughter in the head until she lay motionless.
"We had prayers from about
3.30am to 5am and he left us saying that the Holy Spirit had spoken to him to
visit the pastor at
"When he returned home about
8am he told us me, my daughter and a 60-year-old aunt-in-law to go into the
bedroom and he locked the door," she said.
"He sat on the bed and
started quoting verses from the Bible saying there was an evil spirit in the
house," she said.
"He called our daughter but
she did not want to go to him and started crying. He then told me to breastfeed
her but she refused to eat because I had just fed her," she said.
"My daughter started crying,
then he grabbed her and said the evil spirit was in her and that he would kill
her to exorcise the evil spirit from the house.
"He said that if Abraham
could sacrifice his son Isaac as stated in the Bible then he would also
sacrifice his daughter as an offering to save his family and district, Lekutu,
spiritually."
Mrs Dimae said things happened so
quickly and immobilised with shock they watched helplessly as her husband
punched her daughter several times in the head.
"Then he told us to dress
her up while he went to fetch a van and we all went to Nakadrudru, about two
kilometres away, to his parents' house where he told them what he'd done,"
she said.
Mrs Dimae, a school teacher who
is sheltering with relatives in Labasa, said she feared for her safety and
would not return to Lekutu.
Police spokesman Atunaisa
Sokomuri confirmed the 32-year-old man later turned himself in at the Lekutu
Police Post.
"Our investigations are
continuing and no charge has been laid yet," he said.
Lekutu villager Rupeni Rokoqele
said they heard the pleas for mercy from the house but thought it was a
domestic dispute.
A post mortem examination is
expected to be conducted today.
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