Epukunoyana
A 63-year-old woman from Epukunoyana village in Ondangwa in Oshana Region is sleeping in the mahangu field after her homestead burnt to ashes in what is decsribed as a mysterious blaze.
It is reported that the frail woman who stays with her 13-year-old granddaughter was clubbed with a dry stick on the head by an “unknown thing” before her hut burst into flames on Monday afternoon.
According to the elderly Josefina Wilhelm, it all started in 2014 when her husband was alive and burnt down all their huts and hacked her with a panga on her forehead.
“We called the Pentecostal churches that prayed until it stopped. Now it is back again when I am alone with my granddaughter. It is hard to understand these strange happenings,” narrated a tearful Wilhelm.
Wilhelm said they now have to sleep in the field “because of the mysterious things”.
Neighbours including her own daughter tried to accommodate them but the “mysterious being” continues to haunt them, beating them and burning things that belong to them.
“I seriously tried to accommodate my mother at our house because I am married, but the thing is following them. I told them to go back to their house. I don’t want my house to catch fire too,” said Anna Frans, the daughter of Wilhelm.
“Everything that we had at home has burnt including the two silos full of mahangu,” said Frans.
Even the little mahangu we harvested this year is burnt to ashes – the mysterious thing has made our future bleak. It is so painful that we have to sleep in the cold on empty stomachs yet we worked hard to get a silo of mahangu,” she said.
Wilhem said she is originally from Endola in Ohangwena Region and moved to Epukunonayama 30 years ago, after she got married.
She said she has never seen anything like this before and just wants to move out of the seemingly haunted homestead.
“This is so painful – every time my documents are just set on fire. I work hard to get what I have and now my things burn to ashes. I can’t take this any longer,” she said.
Selma Tobias, a neighbour, said she is shocked to see such things happening to Wilhelm and she wants God to hear the prayers of the despondent victim.
She said she has been there for 40 years but only seen such things happening to her neighbour’s homestead.
“We are willing to help her but we cannot because the ghost is following her everywhere she goes,” said Tobias.
When New Era arrived at the scene Wilhelm and her granddaughter were seen sleeping on a mattress in front of the hut that has been reduced to ashes.