A man is being sought after his wife was allegedly beaten to death with a hammer during a domestic dispute at their home in Mutare’s Chikanga suburb on Sunday. Their seven-year-old daughter is said to have witnessed the attack.
The incident happened at House Number 9008, Natview Park. The victim, Rumbidzai Matasva, was 27. Her husband, Blessing Makamba, is 30.
The couple had been experiencing longstanding marital problems, and Makamba had allegedly accused Matasva of infidelity. People familiar with the matter said tensions flared on Sunday and escalated into a violent confrontation inside the home.
“On the fateful day, the misunderstanding turned violent, with Makamba allegedly assaulting Matasva. He allegedly struck her several times on the head and face with a hammer, inflicting severe injuries. Matasva bled profusely and is believed to have died at the scene. After allegedly realising what had happened, Makamba reportedly fled, leaving the body in the house together with the couple’s two minor children,” said the source.
The couple had two children. The seven-year-old daughter was reportedly present during the assault, while both children were left in the house after Makamba fled.
The alarm was raised later in the day when a fellow tenant returned home and found the children crying. The tenant said they told her their mother had died. She went with them to the room and found Matasva motionless on the floor.
“At around 6.10pm, I returned home and was met by the deceased’s two children, who were crying uncontrollably. They told me their mother had died. We opened the door and found her lying motionless on the floor. There was blood all over the room,” said the tenant.
The acting Manicaland provincial police spokesperson, Assistant Inspector Wiseman Chinyoka, referred questions to national police spokesperson Commissioner Paul Nyathi. Nyathi could not be reached for comment. Investigations are under way, and efforts to locate Makamba are continuing.
Residents of Natview Park were left shaken by the killing, which took place inside a family home and in the presence of young children. The children were left without either parent at the scene: their mother had died, while their father had left before the tenant found them.
The case has also brought renewed attention to a separate fatal attack reported in the same Chikanga neighbourhood four months earlier. Samantha Chuma, 41, died after a violent confrontation with her husband, Tawanda Muradzikwa, 34, at their home.
That incident began after Chuma left their four-month-old baby at home in the care of her other children and went to a local bar. Muradzikwa returned to find the infant crying, then went looking for his wife. A tenant, Petronella Gwenzi, later took the baby to the bar. Chuma breastfed the child there, and the couple returned home together.
The violence unfolded after they got back. Gwenzi said she was alerted when one of the couple’s children came to her for a torch because the baby was crying and the house was dark. She accompanied the child to the room and found Chuma injured on the floor.
“I accompanied her to the room and used my torch to light the house. I found Muradzikwa holding Chuma while they were both on the floor. She had a wound at the back of her head and was bleeding,” Gwenzi said.
Neighbours described frequent arguments and previous incidents of violence in the relationship. The couple’s children were placed with relatives after Chuma’s death. The account of the earlier case and Sunday’s attack is separate: the two incidents involved different families, but both took place in Chikanga and left children facing the aftermath of a parent’s death.
A further domestic-violence case was reported on Sunday in Mabvuku, Harare. Noster Mudawarima, 15, was taken to hospital after her husband, Tafadzwa Hwata, 22, allegedly stabbed her in the abdomen at their home in Chizhanje. Hwata was later found dead after ingesting rat poison.
The account said Hwata entered the room where Mudawarima was sleeping and demanded sex. A dispute followed, and he allegedly stabbed her once with a knife. His mother, Irene Kawanda, said the two had been living together since January.
“Noster eloped to my son in January this year but she was not pregnant. I tried in vain to ask the two to wait and marry each other when Noster turns 18 but the two insisted that they could not wait any longer. I was shocked about the stabbing of my daughter in-law and she is responding well to treatment at Parirenyatwa Hospital. Upon returning from visiting my daughter-in-law we were all shocked to hear that Tafadzwa was found dead kumasowe uko hanzi akanwa wemakonzo,” said Irene.
The attempted murder and sex-with-a-minor cases were being investigated at Mabvuku Police Station under reference RRB 6944409. The Mabvuku case is separate from the two killings in Mutare, but it was another report of severe violence inside a household involving a young woman and children nearby.
In Natview Park, the immediate focus remains on finding Makamba and establishing the full sequence of events that ended with Matasva dead and her children alone in the house. The tenant’s account places the discovery at about 6.10pm, after the children came out crying and asked for help. Police investigations are continuing.