Denver Isaacs
3 June 2008
Windhoek — A ZAMBIAN student was murdered in Windhoek on Friday after coming to the aid of a friend whose cellphone was snatched during a church function in Katutura.
According to the Police, the suspect, a 16-year old boy, has confessed to the murder.
Mwelwa Mwange (24), a Business Administration student at the University of Namibia (Unam), died in the Katutura State Hospital's casualty unit at around 20h55 on Friday, shortly after he and a group of friends had finished performing at a fundraising concert at the Restoration Community Development Centre in Katutura.
According to witnesses, Mwange and a few others were on their way from the concert when a boy snatched a cellphone from one of them.
Two of the group members, including Mwange, gave chase after the boy.
The suspect apparently led the two into an ambush, and Mwange was grabbed, stabbed twice in the neck and once in the back by someone who had been lying in wait for them.
A source at the hospital confirmed on Friday that the thieves also took the deceased's shoes and emptied his trouser pockets.
Zambian Deputy High Commissioner Felicity Chulu said yesterday that Mwange's family had been informed of his death.
His father, she said, was due in Namibia yesterday to collect his son's body.
Mwangwe would have turned 25 in October.
A Police spokesperson, Sergeant Stephan Nuuyi, confirmed yesterday that a 16-year-old boy had been arrested in connection with the murder.
Nuuyi said the boy was apparently a member of a youth gang suspected of other robberies in the area.
"There were apparently more than seven of them.
But he confessed that he was the one who did the stabbing.
The others apparently helped," Nuuyi said.
Police have recovered an allegedly stolen watch from the group, but the murder weapon and two cellphones stolen during the incident have not been found yet.
Mwanga's death was preceded by at least four other armed robberies in Windhoek on the same day, in which the suspects endangered the lives of their victims.
Rosa Nande (36) was shot in the leg in a riverbed near the Royal Market in Wanaheda that same night.
She told the Police that she and her brother were approached by three suspects, one armed with a gun, and told to hand over their cellphones.
The two apparently tried to flee and the gunman fired three shots in her direction, one of which hit her.
The suspects then apparently fled the scene, and have not been caught to date.
Half an hour before that, Windhoek resident Andy Kauaeza was shot in the back in a riverbed between Khomasdal and Grysblok.
Kauaeza told the Police that he and three friends were crossing the riverbed on the way to Grysblok when they were approached by three suspects.
"One of the suspects cocked the firearm and the victim grabbed it in a struggle to take it, but in vain," the Police reported yesterday.
Kauaeza's friends managed to run away, but he was hit by a bullet.
The suspects robbed him of his wallet before making their getaway.
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