Western Vhukovhela: Family finds peace, buries murdered victim
The Vhukovhela members were arrested in October 2022 and charged with kidnapping, assault and attempted murder.
LIMPOPO – The family of a woman whose body was exhumed after she was murdered and buried in a shallow grave at Tshikhwani Ha Rathidili in January last year, can finally find peace, after her DNA results came back positive.
The body of Ngoakoana Welma Ramonetha (33) and another victim, Victor Maluleke, were exhumed from different locations at Gogobole and Rathidili (Tshikhwani) in the Sinthumule area on January 29 last year, after five members of the Western Vhukovhela security unit, who were arrested for terrorising local communities, confessed to killing the two victims in 2022.
The accused pointed out to police the sites where they had buried their victims in shallow graves.
According to police spokesperson Lt Col Malesela Ledwaba, Ramonetha went missing in February 2022 after she had left her home in Sekonye village in Botlokwa for Louis Trichardt.
“Investigations revealed that she was kidnapped, tortured and killed, and then buried in a shallow grave all because she apparently refused to surrender a property in Louis Trichardt which was initially used as a brothel,” he said.
Maluleke was reportedly kidnapped from his home in Madombidzha Zone 4 in July the same year, after he was accused of stealing copper cables. He was buried in August 2023.
The Vhukovhela members were arrested in October 2022 and charged with kidnapping, assault and attempted murder.
Ramonetha’s body had been in the state mortuary ever since, as the family awaited the DNA test results, which last week only came back positive
She was buried at Botlokwa Sekonye on Saturday.
