2-year-old boy killed for stealing Cassava

NYAGATARE – A two-year-old baby boy in Rwimiyaga sector, Nyagatare district, who was arrested along with his mother on theft charges on Thursday night, has been killed by a guard. Gervas Mbarushimana, and his mother Monique Nyiraneza, were caught by night patrol guards while stealing cassava in a neighbour’s garden. The family head, Alphonse Mbarushimana escaped arrest. Sources told The New Times the deceased was cut on the neck and died instantly. ‘They were caught by security patrol carrying cassava stolen from a neighbour’s garden in Rwimiyaga cell in the wee hours,” said Geofrey Kabayija, Rwimiyaga sector executive secretary. “The husband escaped but night guards temporarily detained the mother and her child at a nearby food store as they waited for police. However, when police arrived in the morning they found Nyiraneza sitting beside her dead child’s body.” The Nyagatare acting police commander, Damien Gasana, said police has arrested the suspected guard in connection with the murder. ‘When we asked the victim’s mother, she said that one of the guards at a food store later came and killed her child,’ Gasana said, adding that investigations were still going on to ascertain the cause of the child’s death. ‘But you cannot simply specify whether the child was killed with a machete or any other instrument and we have taken his body to Nyagatare Hospital for post-mortem,’ he added. Late Mbarushimana’s parents migrated to Nyagatare from Karongi district in the Western Province. Ends