By Surihe Gaomas RUNDU An 87-year-old grandmother Kashova Pande Kalipa’s life was abuptly ended when her grandson viciously attacked her with a home-made axe on Monday at Mabushe Village in the Kavango Region on suspicion that she had “bewitched” his father. The horrific incident has sent shock waves through the village and surrounding areas. The incident happened while the old woman was talking to another grandchild. That was when the 17-year-old suspect emerged out of the blue and suddenly delivered the fatal blow to the grandmother’s head and then disappeared in the nearby bushes. The suspect was apprehended following a police search in nearby villagers. It is reported that the young man allegedly killed his grandmother because he believed she was responsible for his father’s death through witchcraft. When New Era visited the scene of the crime, some 70 kilometres outside Rundu, a group of men and women could be seen at the homestead where the old woman had lived all her life. The bloodstained suspected murder weapon was still lying in the shade of a tree where the old woman was brutally killed. To indicate the spot where Kalipa died, the family placed three stones at the ‘death spot’. When police arrived at the scene, the axe was still stuck in the deceased’s head. The body was later transported to the Rundu mortuary. “We are terribly shocked about the loss of our grandmother,” said a distraught son, Lucas Shampapi, when he recounted the tragic incident. He said he could not believe that his own relative (the suspect) would do something this brutal. “In fact, he is only a child. But we have put everything in God’s hands. There is nothing much we can say,” said Shampapi. The deceased, Kashova Pande Kalipa, was described as a good, loving mother who brought up seven children of her own and close to 20 grandchildren. However, rumours in the village are that people talked badly about her and that she practically lived in fear for her own life. “I’m really not feeling okay about what’s happening in my family,” said Muronga Christof Ndonga, another relative of the deceased. “Just some weeks back, my uncle was also chopped by his own son; now this has happened again with my grandmother,” he added. The news of her sudden death was just too much for him as he had the previous day spent time with her ploughing mahangu fields together. “It is a family problem. We say in Rukwangali ‘valikoro’ which means our family. The one who they kill is our grandmother, and the one who killed her is also one of our family. They say traditionally, no more dying in families because the one who used to kill us is gone,” said Ndonga. The 17-year-old suspect, who is currently in police custody, will appear in the Rundu Magistrate’s Court today (Wednesday).