Dad accused of stabbing his 16-month-old daughter was ‘smoking tik all night’

Share this article: Share Tweet Share Share Share Email Share

Cape Town - The mother of a 16-month-old baby who was allegedly stabbed to death by her 33-year-old boyfriend said the accused had smoked tik with a friend the night before the incident. Nadia Saayman, the mother of baby Alime Mbasha, on Tuesday spoke about the incident that led to the death of her daughter last Thursday at Buffelsjag farm in Swellendam. Her boyfriend, Siyabonga Mbasha, better known as Moffit, was arrested shortly after the incident and has been charged with the murder of his child. Saayman said: “The trouble started on Wednesday when my boyfriend and a friend smoked tik for most of the night. Siyabonga worked at another farm in Witsand some kilometres away from Buffelsjag, where I stay, and I didn’t want to move with him to Witsand. “On Thursday afternoon, he started to get angry. He got hold of a knife and I fought with him, trying to get the knife out of his hand. I cut my hand in the process and started running out of the house.

“He ran after me and tried to stab me. I remember Alime was in the room. My granny saw him coming out with the baby. He stood in the door holding a knife at Alime’s neck. He walked towards the gate holding the baby by the leg, twice dropping her to the floor before he slit her throat and stabbed the baby in the chest in front of my granny.”

Gielie de Kock, the owner of Witsand where the accused worked, said: “Moffit worked for 14 years in the milk parlour on the farm.

“He had the potential to be one the best workers. But he had a drug problem.”

Mbasha briefly appeared in the Swellendam Magistrate’s Court on Friday. He was not asked to plead, and the matter was postponed to January 29.

[email protected]