Onendongo
The Oshana regional police are requesting members of the community to go and identify their donkeys that the police freed from illegal detention at Okaku recently.
In March this year two men were arrested by the Oshana police for illegally keeping 36 donkeys in their kraal and killing or mutilating eight of them.
Two of the donkeys died and six were grievously injured when the suspects hacked them with pangas.
The injured and dead animals were burnt by officials from the police’s anti-stock theft investigation unit.
“At least 14 donkeys were identified and only 12 remain unidentified to date. Hence we want people to come forward and identify their animals,” a police investigator, who preferred not to be named, said.
The police further said the animals are now kept at Onendongo village headman’s kraal who volunteered to help keep them but now wants to get rid of them.
The suspects Gomushalo Kalifeni (24) and Ndahafa Daniel Tuhafeni (45) have already appeared in court and their case was postponed to June 6.
They culprits admitted to the police that they were responsible for the mutilation of the donkeys and that they had skinned two of them to eat the meat.
The police found a cooking pot containing donkey meat, as well as skinned donkey carcasses, in a corrugated iron shed.
They were informed that a neighbour had received a share of the meat.
The suspects told the police that they were tired of donkeys destroying their mahangu fields. However, they could not show the police any damage to their crops.