Call it what it is - barbaric savagery, call each killer what they are - evil incarnate

IT WAS a crime that shook the community to its core. Two little sisters, Emilia and Ilana just 7 and 4, murdered.

Their killer would hatch a plan so diabolical it would leave even experienced journalists and police officers who are on the front lines of crime – shaken to their core.

The deliberate act of purchasing the poison. Interacting with the girls while busy putting the poison into the sisters’ favourite food.

Their killer would watch them eat, at any second he could have changed his mind. Stopped it. But he chose instead to watch the little girls eat and then suffer an agonising death.

Who would look at two little faces, look them in their eyes and feed them poison knowing the outcome would and could only be death?

It seems incomprehensible that a father would do this to his children. But this is exactly what a cold and calculating Leon Munsamy did – not even his suicide can erase the barbaric savagery of this evil incarnate.

Barely with time to catch our breaths, our community and the country is crippled once more.

The blood of four women – mothers, daughters, a pregnant nurse, stains our collective conscience.

All brutally slaughtered by men who just can’t take no for an answer. Barbaric savagery, the work of men so profoundly evil that even the word seems inadequate in the face of what they have done.

These were not “domestic incidents.”

These were not sad stories or unfortunate tragedies.

These were cold, calculated, vengeful executions driven by a poisonous male entitlement that refuses to release its grip even when a woman dares to walk away.

Chilkana Bhaktawer was shot in the back of the head in her own kitchen.

Her terrified daughters, aged just seven and 10 would watch their mother collapse, her blood and brain splattered all over the kitchen – a sanctuary where they once hugged and shared meals.

Kesavan Pillay - the estranged husband - allegedly jumped the fence, assaulted her, shot her dead and fled like the coward he was. Barbaric and savage. An evil incarnate.

Aleyka Shaik, a dedicated nurse, five months pregnant with twins and the dream of a happy family life with a partner with whom she felt safe and loved.

It was too much for her killer to bear.

Keith Chetty would allegedly plunge a knife into Aleyka’s stomach.

Each time he drove that knife into her body have no doubt it was deliberate and calculated. To punish, to hurt to kill.

Aleyka’s seven year old daughter would watch her father deliver his jealous verdict – another man who could not take "no" for an answer, allegedly snarling “I would never want you to be happy,” before plunging the knife into Aleyka’s stomach, erasing a mother and her two unborn babies.

Barbaric. Savage. The evil incarnate.

Christina “Nikki” Joseph and her fifteen-year-old daughter Brooklyn Hemmero would also pay with their lives because yet another South African man would be incapable of moving on.

Methodical and diabolical - Kyle Francis strangled Brooklyn first and then lay in wait in their flat for the second part of his plan.

Stabbing Christina in a frenzied attack when she returned from work, Kyle Francis made sure he would have the last say in that relationship.

Barbaric and Savage. An evil incarnate.

Unitha Rajwanta, lured under false pretences to a property she co-owned with her estranged husband in Glen Ashley, Durban North.

All Unitha wanted was freedom and a life of peace fear. Vikash Rajwanta delivered death instead. Another barbaric savagery and an evil incarnate.

These are evil crimes, unforgivable acts of possession and punishment.

Little girls watching heir mother’s head explode in the very kitchen where she once made their breakfast.

A seven-year-old freezes in horror as her pregnant mother was stabbed while doing something as ordinary as fetching her from a visit.

A 15-year-old fought for her life because her mother refused to stay owned. These children did not witness “passion” they witnessed evil incarnates unleashing hell because they could not stomach rejection.

Yet the same nauseating script begins immediately on Facebook posts reporting these very murders. Toxic entitlement pours out in the comments section unchecked. Men commented: “Its so important to choose the correct partner in life.”

“No offense but there’s always two sides to any fight or whatever. Have you thought about his wife may have been having an affair while he was working.”

“Won’t be surprised that she maybe cheated on him… Today’s world is very evil.”

“It’s trending for men. I think men feel they all alone and the law is only for the woman.”

Make no mistake patriarchy requires the simpering fan club to stoke egos and amplify the narrative that seeks to justify and sanitise brutal and evil crimes.

Women too commenting, questioning and worse blaming the murdered women for their bloody and cruel deaths, "As a mother she should have put her child first".

"There are two sides to every story," one would comment in the aftermath of Munsamy killing his daughters.

This was one of patriarchy's very serious gatekeepers, on every post she would surface, even attempting to shut down any compassion or anger expressed at what was and will be a crime most heinous.

"Mental illness" the new buzzword and the catchphrase of our time. To explain away savagery and sanitise the morally reprehensible.

Look, every one of us battles mental health struggles.

In this country and in these global times of genocide and cruelty that cuts to the core of humanity, throw in poverty, crime, the daily grind of survival – we are all inextricably linked by trauma and mentally and emotionally very many of us are struggling.

But the vast majority of us do not execute pregnant women in front of their children. We do not strangle teenagers to punish their mothers.

We do not gun down estranged wives in parking lots. To hide these killers behind “mental health” is dishonest and disgusting.

It spits on every person quietly fighting real depression, anxiety, and trauma without becoming a murderer. It cheapens genuine suffering and hands entitled cowards the ultimate free pass: sympathy instead of scorn, understanding instead of chains.

This is not mental illness. This is entitlement so rotten it turns a woman’s “no” into a death sentence.

These men could not cope with losing power.

They could not accept that a woman’s life, body, and future are not their property. Love was never love, it was ownership.

When that ownership was threatened, the mask slipped and pure violence erupted: stalk, plan, execute.

Then society, and these very comments, debates the killer’s “pain,” speculates wildly about the woman’s “affair” or “wrong choice,” and paints men as the real victims while children scream over their mothers’ corpses.

South Africa fails these victims twice. In life, when protection orders are ignored and warnings dismissed.

In death, when the conversation rushes to humanise the killers, question what the victims “did” to deserve it , for leaving, for “driving him mad,” for failing to submit and when men flood the comments with warnings that women must simply “choose better” or accept that men “feel used.”

The blood of Chilkana, Aleyka, Christina, Brooklyn and Unitha is on their killers’ hands.

But the shame of our silence, our excuses, and our tolerance of these toxic attitudes belongs to all of us.

No more sanitising language. No more excuses about “stressed men,” “passion crimes,” or women who “should have known better” or “chosen better.”

And to the inevitable chorus of “not all men” and “women do it too” - we know it is not every man. The killers don’t exactly walk around wearing signs do they?

They are often the “nice guys,” the quiet husbands, the fathers neighbours described as “such a good man” until rejection cracked the mask and entitlement exposed them for who and what they are. Evil Incarnate!

The time for deflection is over. South Africa must act. Decisively and without mercy. Enforce every protection order the instant it is granted.

Stop wasting court time debating the killer’s “mental health” and deliver lifelong sentences with no pity or parole.

Teach every boy from the earliest age that a woman’s “no” is not an attack on his manhood. It is her absolute, non-negotiable right. Hold families, friends, and communities accountable when they saw the red flags and chose silence.

Demand that media and commentators stop humanising monsters and start centring the blood on the floor and the children left screaming.

We owe these little girls, and every woman still fighting to leave far more than rage. We owe them systems that actually protect, a culture that calls entitlement by its true name, poison and zero tolerance for the attitudes that excuse murder.

Activism on social media is one thing, how about activism on the streets where you live? Because here is the truth. We all know or at best suspect something isn’t quite right.

These barbarians walk and live among us. They work with us. We socialise with them. They thrive and survive in dark places.

Shine the light on them. Let them know you know.

Because if we keep making space for “nice guy” excuses and whataboutism, the next set of small, trembling hands desperately wiping their mother’s blood off the kitchen tiles could be someone you know and love.

The blood of Chilkana, Aleyka, Christina, Brooklyn and Unitha demands better.

Their children’s trauma screams for better.

South Africa, we either build that better world or we admit we are complicit in the next slaughter. Barbaric and savage. Each killer - evil incarnate.

Vanessa Govender is a former SABC radio and award winning ENCA television news reporter. She is an author of the children’s book, The Selfish Shongololo, the best selling memoir, Beaten But Not Broken, and the recently released memoir, The Village Indian. Follow her on X @Govender_VInstagram @vanessa_tedder

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media. 

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