Remembering Selma Shaimemanya

Johanna Wilkie — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 11:34:03 +0000

Erastus Nekuta agreed to be interviewed about his niece, Selma Shaimemanya, who was shot and killed by her abusive husband, Lazarus Shaduka, on July 13, 2008. Erastus described Selma as “…always available to help where help was needed.” He also said that she was hard-working and forward-looking, and that she was “trying to be somebody in life.” She was well-educated: she attended university at the Polytechnic in Windhoek and then went to the UK to get her master’s degree. When she came back to Namibia, she began working for the Ministry of Defense. Soon after her return she married Shaduka.

Shaduka started abusing her immediately after the marriage and the situation deteriorated quickly. He often threatened to kill her. Despite intervention by various family members, the abuse did not stop. At one point, after he had threatened her with his gun, she went to the police to get a protection order. However, she was pressured to withdraw her application by Shaduka’s family, and so she did not go through with the order. The police confiscated his gun when she took out the order but he was able to retrieve it immediately after the case was withdrawn. Soon after that, just one year after the wedding, he killed her with it, shooting her in the presence of their 8-month-old daughter. Selma was just 33. In this video Erastus describes her murder and what happened immediately afterward.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SKFcp6AtiA

Shaduka is still waiting for trial.

Remembering Rudolfine Gorases

Johanna Wilkie — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 13:41:34 +0000

Today I spoke with a woman aptly named Memory. She agreed to tell me about her cousin Rudolfine, who was shot and killed by her boyfriend in September 2004. Rudolfine was only 24 and had a 9-year-old daughter who is now without a mother.

Rudolfine’s boyfriend was a member of the Namibian Defense Force (the Namibian military), which is how he had obtained the gun that killed Rudolfine. Her family does not know whether he abused her previously, or whether he had ever threatened her with the gun. All they know is that one day the couple had an argument. The boyfriend left the house briefly, came back with the gun, and shot and killed Rudolfine. He then shot himself, but he survived.

Rudolfine’s killer was taken into custody later but Memory did not know whether he had been convicted or even on trial. She said that the family had chosen not to follow what happened to him. When I asked her about the relationship between her and Rudolfine, she said that they had actually only met a few years before her death, “so it was such a short time and it was really bad losing her.”

When I looked up Rudolfine’s death online to see if any news stories had been written about it, I found just one very short item, apparently without follow-up, in The Namibian. Discussing the suspected murderer, its closing line reads: “The reasons for his actions are not yet known.” I doubt they will ever be known, or can ever be comprehended.

Johanna Wilkie » murder

Remembering Selma Shaimemanya

Remembering Rudolfine Gorases