The 8-year girl, whose identity is being kept from media, was walking home from her school in Gingindlovu, KwaZulu-Natal, when she was dragged into a nearby sugarcane field by a 15-year old schoolboy.

 My granddaughter told me that he dragged her into the sugarcane field and she told him to stop, but he continued… She cried out but nobody could hear her. When he was done raping her, he tried to gouge out her eyes, bit her on the neck and then strangled her, leaving her helpless,” said the girl’s grandmother.

She usually finished school around 14h00, but when she had still not returned home by 16h00, her grandmother became concerned. As she left her house to search for her granddaughter, the girl collapsed in front of her. The girl, alive, but in a critical condition, had managed to drag herself home where she collapsed in front of her grandmother. Her grandmother picked her up and carried her into her house and laid her on the couch. A relative arrived soon after to take the young girl to hospital.

“She was in a critical condition and I thought she would die,” she said.

The Grade 2 pupil underwent emergency surgery at the Ngwelezane Hospital in Empangeni. Heavily bandaged but stable, doctors said that she would make a full recovery.

The boy, whose identity has also not yet been released, attended the same school as the girl and they also went to Sunday school together. He appeared in the local magistrate’s court on Wednesday after his own grandmother phoned the police. She said her grandson had been accused of raping another girl earlier on the same day and she reprimanded him.

We did not reprimand him the second time because we feared he would run away like he did when the first family came to our house.

His grandmother said evil spirits had caused the violent change in the boy. She claims that over the Easter weekend her grandson experienced visions of a man who commanded him to “commit evil deeds.”

“We prayed for him at the time that he would no longer dream of this evil man. I believe evil spirits led him to do what he did,” she said.

Police spokesman Colonel Jay Naicker corroborated the claims.

“The suspect claimed that he was possessed by a demon as he heard voices that prompted him to carry out the attack,” he said.

The girl remains in the hospital and is in a stable condition.

[Source: IOL]