WHAT can make a mother to kill her own son, especially by plunging a knife in a five-year-old defenceless young child?
These are questions being asked by many people in the UK, both white and black, after a 32-year-old Zimbabwean mother Farai Chiriseri killed her own five-year-old son Scott Chiriseri on Friday last week.
She killed her son around 8.30 am; a time when many children in the UK would be preparing to go to school.
It is not clear what triggered the brutal killing that left the paramedics who attended the scene, in need of counselling.
The mother has since been detained in a psychiatric hospital under the Mental Health Act (1983), suggesting that she may have been mentally ill when she carried out the gruesome killing.
There are many reasons why such incidents can take place, ranging from mental illnesses and religious beliefs of exorcising witchcraft.
She is not the first mother to kill her own child in the UK.
In April this year, a South African-born mother, Tania Clarence, killed her three children by suffocating them before attempting to take her own life.
Her children suffered from a rare medical condition known as Type Two spinal muscular atrophy.
She too was severely depressed and has since been sectioned in a psychiatric hospital.
Depression caused by isolation, is one of the common mental illnesses affecting black people in the UK.
I will share with you my personal experiences, which I have only shared with a few people in the past.
One morning, in August 2000, I woke up hearing some children shouting and talking in Shona, my vernacular, which I had missed so much in that exclusive white community where I lived in Nottingham.
I was pregnant, isolated, worried about my immigration status and I did not know how I would cope with a child with no social support and access to public funds.
Abortion was out of the question (as many people were advising me).
I was missing my family, my food, and the only child I had left in Zimbabwe.
I was struggling to come to terms with doing menial jobs after many years in the office.
I missed speaking Shona more than anything else.
So that morning I was very happy to hear a group of white English kids speaking Shona outside, near the window of the room where I was sleeping. Smiling, and dressed in my pyjamas, I went out of the house, towards where they were playing and started talking to them, in Shona, asking them who they were and how it was that they spoke Shona so beautifully!
The children looked at me confused and expressionless, before taking their bicycles and riding away.
I stood there confused.
I phoned my mother’s cousin (who lived in Coventry) and explained to her what I had heard, and how the children had ‘rejected’ me.
“You are not well,” she said.
“Get the next train and come and live here.
“Bring all your belongings.”
That day I left Nottingham and started a new life in Coventry with the support of my cousin, who, at one time, had been diagnosed with a mental illness and sectioned in a mental hospital.
She recognised my symptoms and feared that I would succumb to an illness affecting many black people in the UK: Schizophrenia and depression.
The death of Scott Chiriseri has brought to light, once more, the controversy surrounding a Zimbabwean church in Scotland; the Agape for All Nations Ministries Internationals church, which is led by Dr Walter Masocha. (I wrote an article about the Agape Church in March this year).
I don’t know the role played by the Agape Church in this incident, but two Scottish newspapers have questioned the link between the Tichakunda Chiriseri (the boy’s father) and the controversial Zimbabwean church.
It is understood that Tichakunda Chiriseri had become a member of that church a few months before he separated with his wife.
In an article: ‘Church link probe after the death of a boy, five, in Alva’, the Scottish Express says, “Scott’s father, Tichakunda Chiriseri, who is also from Zimbabwe, joined a controversial religious organisation run by a self-styled prophet shortly before the couple separated earlier this year.”
The Sunday Post, another Scottish newspaper, also wrote an article linking the death of the child to the father’s ‘controversial church’.
It wrote, “Alva death boy’s dad linked to controversial new church: The death of a five-year-old boy was shrouded in mystery last night amid claims his dad was a member of a controversial church.”
And the Daily Mail also added to the controversy by stating that a few years ago, Scottish residents (who reside near Dr Masocha) had campaigned for the City Council to issue Pastor Masocha with an anti-social-behaviour-order (ASBO), which included baptising people and exorcising demons in his back garden.
“Dr Masocha, a former university lecturer who is also from Zimbabwe, sparked outrage after claiming he is a prophet ‘anointed by God’.
Neighbours demanded the council give him an ASBO after claims he was baptising people and carrying out exorcisms in his back garden,” (The Daily Mail).
Last week, an online Zimbabwean newspaper revealed how Godfrey Mutara (48), an Elder with a ZAOGA branch in Leicester had fled to Zimbabwe following claims that he had molested a 12-year-old girl, one of the congregants.
“The case has since been reported to Leicestershire Constabulary who are currently investigating the case though it is set back by Mutara’s absence as he has currently gone to Zimbabwe,” wrote the Zimonline news.
“The case has since triggered more under age victims said to have fallen to Mutara’s unholy shenanigans.”
Writing on her blog https://hewasmydaddy.blogspot.co.uk/, Jean Gasho, who claims she has been a victim of Dr Masocha’s church, shares her views on what she thinks may have happened and contributed to make Farai Chiriseri kill her son.
“I told you about Anna because today she reminds me of Farai Chiriseri.
“Her husband leaves her under the instruction of a religious leader Walter Masocha.
“Her own in-laws Joseph Chiriseri and his wife (who are also members of Agape) do everything in their power to get rid of Farai in the family.
“They encourage Tichakunda to abandon his family.
“Farai is left completely on her own and watches another woman Caroline Chiwara take over her husband.
“Farai is demonised by Walter Masocha and Agape church members.
“You see if Farai had been in Africa things would have never got to this, she would have had family and community support, but it’s very different in the UK.”
Dr Masocha will be appearing in court in Scotland on December 30 2014 where he faces charges of sexual abuse to some members of his congregation, including some minors.