Mother recounts horror after son’s throat slit by housemaid

The law enforcers managed to arrest the girl and launch investigations into the attempted murder.

Maliki has effectively received treatment at the Muhimbili National Hospital and was discharged yesterday.

In an interview with The Citizen yesterday, Maliki’s mother, Shani Charles, 30, said it was around 6:30pm when she received a call from her neighbour named Mama Zai, who told her to return home immediately because Maliki had been injured.

“I immediately switched off my sewing machine, grabbed my phone, and told my colleagues I was rushing home to see my son. Thank God, as soon as I walked out of the office, I met the motorcycle driver who rushed me home.

On her way to the hospital, she received a follow-up call from her neighbour.

“This time she was more vocal, asking me why I was delaying lest I find my son dead. I told her I was on my way there, and I just started praying for my son’s health without knowing what really happened,” said Ms Shani.

Upon her arrival, she saw other people going to her house. This added more confusion to her, but she says she kept on praying. When she finally entered the house, she found him covered by a head scarf. “I had not time to waste. I grabbed him and went straight to the same motorcycle I came with and asked him to rush to a private hospital at Goba,” she says.

On her way to the hospital, she kept telling her son not to sleep as she kept praying for him.

“I asked him who did this to you, and he said in a very low voice and in pain dada (literally meaning sister), referring to their former housemaid Clemensia Mirembe,” she says.

After uttering those words, said Ms Shani Charles, the boy was unable to continue talking. Until that time, she had no idea how badly the boy was hurt.

“But using my phone’s torch to see the wounds while on the way, I realised he was cut behind his neck and his throat, and when he breathed, the air was just coming out. I shouted and told the driver to hurry us to the hospital. When we arrived, I was only shouting and calling for help. It was when I realised my son had no clothes,” said Shani.

It was at the private hospital that they were referred to MNH on the very same day. “I thank President Samia Suluhu Hassan for funding my son’s treatment as well as MNH staff for their dedication at work,” she says.

She said the incident came as a major surprise to them, considering that their son and the housemaid had a very good relationship.

“As we are talking, Malik is asking about his sister’s [the housemaid’s] whereabouts and why she doesn’t come to see him,” she said.

The family has lived with Clemencia for about seven months. It surprises Shani and her husband Hashim what really happened to her. On the day of the incident, everything was normal, and they had nothing against each other.

“I honestly have no idea what really happened to Clemensia. She is a good person, and we had a very good relationship. I just don’t want to believe she did it with her sound mind. Most of the time she was hugging my son as they slept, and she never let him go play out of her sight,” said Ms Shani.

Being asked how well she knew Clemencia before she employed her, she said she never knew her and was introduced by a person she knows. Once in a while she would check Clemencia’s phone and note that in most of her conversations with her relatives, she would ask for forgiveness without stating what she did to them.

When she asked her, she said she had a misunderstanding with her sister back in Morogoro. At one point, she requested a bus fare to travel to Morogoro to ask for forgiveness, something she never did even after being given the fare. She only went somewhere else.

As soon as she got back home from her trip, they asked her questions and realised she never went to Morogoro, and she never said where she was. She only asked for forgiveness.

She again said she was living with a man who promised to live with her but later started to mistreat her.

Ms Shani Charles vows never to employ a housemaid again in her life, saying it will be difficult to trust any of them anymore.

The life she will live after her son’s treatment will be challenging. A psychologist has advised that they should relocate from their house for about four months as part of the boy’s psychological healing. They are also advised to transfer the boy to another school so he can forget what happened to him.

“The challenge is that we have no place to go. We are still trying to see where to go, as the house in Goba is ours. Getting a place to live is a challenge. Whoever can help us with a place to live, we will appreciate,” said Ms Shani.

She called upon the government to start registering housemaids’s information and their working backgrounds for it to be easy to access them and learn from other employers the kind of people they employ.