Girl, 6, slit mum's throat

Girl, 6, slit mum's throat - police

• Woman bitten by snake while defacating in bush

• Man gets community service for stripping

• Woman paid 'to fly 5 UK mermaids to Zim'

• Binga farmer's body split in two by hippo

• HIV-positive sex beast raped own mum

• Sex change scandal athlete suicidal

• Male Zimbabwe athlete competed as a female

• Conjoined twins to undergo surgery in 2 weeks

• Conjoined Zimbabwe twins to be separated

• Killer dad on the run after 2 toddlers killed

• Man bites off, swallows finger in bar brawl

• Hitch hikers forced to dig up graves

• Man dries at beer drinking contest

• Woman carried 'money spinning' lizards in handbag

• Gwanda mum gives birth to 6kg baby

• Witchcraft blamed as stones rain on family

• Suspected thief quizzes accuser, then dies in dock

• Man grows female genital organ on face

• Priest won't bless dreadlocked man's wedding

• Family won't bury relative over unpaid lobola

• Goblins burn traditional healer

• Zim clamps down on male hookers

• Headmaster gets 5 years for incest affair

• Man who sired 2 kids with own daughter jailed

• Man has two kids with own daughter!

• Headmaster in 5-year relationship with daughter

• Zim sex beast nailed in UK

• Zim man gets life for killing wife in UK

• Zim man on murder rap in UK

• 'Zim doctor groped nurses in Canada'

• Zim man faces kidnap charges in Wales

• HIV tests for Zimbabwe preachers

By Staff Reporter

ZIMBABWEAN police are investigating a case in which a six-year-old girl apparently obeyed her chronically ill mother's order to kill her by cutting her throat with a kitchen knife, reports said Thursday.

"We are still investigating the matter and at the moment the information we have is that the daughter slit her mother's throat with a knife, under the mother's instructions," police spokesperson Tineyi Matake told the state-run Herald newspaper.

"However, we are also investigating the prospect of the mother having killed herself with the knife," he added.

The incident was reported May 7.

The child, whose name was not disclosed, is too young to commit a crime under Zimbabwean law.

Euthanasia or assisted suicide is illegal in Zimbabwe, with authorities saying it goes against African tradition.

The Herald said the dead woman, Rudo Madziva, 30, is from a village in the Masvingo region 500km south of Harare.

"She was in and out of hospital with an undisclosed ailment and her condition had deteriorated when she allegedly told the minor to kill her while her husband frantically sought transport to ferry her to hospital," the paper reported.

Zimbabwe's state hospitals and clinics are chronically understaffed and underfunded, often having no drugs to give patients except aspirin.

With over 25% of the adult population infected with the Aids virus, Zimbabwean hospitals lack antiretrovirals and other medicines to alleviate the suffering of patients. An estimated 3 000 people each week are dying of Aids-related diseases and graveyards are running out of space to bury the dead.

In another sign of the shortage of drugs hitting the country, state radio reported Thursday a mentally disturbed woman, lacking medication, had been charged with murder after fatally beating her 12-month-old child's head against a rock - Sapa
JOIN THE DEBATE ON THIS ARTICLE ON THE NEWZIMBABWE.COM FORUMS
newsdesk@newzimbabwe.com