Ongwediva
Taina Niita Shipopyeni, a 28-year-old from Onandjila village at Okahao in the Omusati Region, is recovering in hospital after she was attacked with a hammer by a boyfriend who claimed she wanted to break up with him.
The boyfriend, Samuel Ndapandula Iipinge, committed suicide shortly after the incident. The two lovebirds lived together in Shipopyeni’s family home, but things turned ugly when she asked the boyfriend to leave the house because her family was not happy with the pair’s co-habitation.
The savage attack reportedly occurred in the last Friday morning after the couple returned from local shebeens, where they are said to have been drinking.
According to a relative who spoke on conditions of anonymity, the two were in a long, but often quarrelsome relationship.
Shipopyeni, who is currently receiving treatment at Oshakati Intermediate Hospital, was struck on the head, forehead and left eye with a hammer. Her 45-year-old boyfriend was later found hanging in a shack at his home.
Shipopyeni said the boyfriend over-reacted when she informed him that her family was not happy that they were co-habitating in the family‘s home.
“He has been sick for a long time and we decided to go to the traditional healer in order to find out what was wrong with him,” she told New Era from her sickbed yesterday.
“He was told [by the witchdoctor] to move out of the house, because it was possessed with witchcraft. We then moved to my relative’s house, where my family was also not happy with us living together,” the Shipopyeni still clearly in great pain, said.
She recalled that when she urged her boyfriend to move out of the house, as per her family’s instructions, Iipinge claimed she wanted to dump him: “He said: After I told him that, he claimed that ‘Niita, you want to dump me, but I will kill you now’.”
He grabbed a hammer and hit me once vasuing her to fall to the ground. He then struck her two more times, she said.
A family member fumed that the said couple had been visiting traditional doctors who told them they were being witched. “It’s these traditional healers and these unrecognised churches that distract peace among our people. These people were confused, because they believed in these unrecognised and unprofessional people,” said the family member.
The relative further said the two had been cohabiting for five years and have no children together, although they both have children from previous relationships.
The public relation officer of Omusati police, Seargent Anna Kunga, confirmed the incident. She said it is believed the deceased man thought he had killed the woman he loves and tragically decided to take his own life.