What should have been a fun night out with friends on Valentine’s Day ended in horror for a Borolong woman, who finished the evening battered, bloodied and barely alive.
Kenaope Ramajaga, 35, is convinced she came close to death’s door, claiming her jealous boyfriend beat her to within an inch of her life as soon as she returned home.
She has the bruises to back up her words.
Currently recuperating at Nyangabgwe Referral Hospital, with a cracked skull, her back scarred from repeated whippings, her internal organs failing from months of being kicked around, the terrified woman begged for protection ‘before it’s too late’.
“I need a restraining order. This man is going to kill me. Do you know that while I’m here nursing injuries, he’s free running around as if nothing has happened,” she told The Voice on Tuesday afternoon.
At the center of the controversy is Oteng Smarts, an unemployed 40-year-old man Ramajaga has been dating for close to a year and who lives across the street from her rented home.
Narrating her ordeal from the female surgical ward, Ramajaga revealed she left her house at around 1800hrs on 14th February to join her friends at a local bar.
Within an hour, Smarts called, demanding to know where she was.
“I told him I was out with my friends. He started bombarding me with text messages, accusing me of promiscuity, and insulting me through SMS’ which I ignored,” she said.
According to Ramajaga, her irate lover turned up unannounced later in the night and started harassing her at the bar.
Fortunately fellow drinkers intervened and a fuming Smart slunk away into the dark.
It seems he was waiting in the shadows, biding his time.
“My friends dropped me home at around 0100hrs. A moment after they’d left, he jumped from behind a shrub and grabbed me, warning me not to dare scream,” she said, pausing for several seconds before adding, “He then started pounding me with his fists, punching without mercy.”
“Both my eyes swelled up immediately from the ferocious strikes. I was temporarily blind when he dragged me to his house,” sobbed Ramajaga.
The wounded woman, whose swollen, cut face is still badly bruised, says the attack intensified once inside Smart’s house, where she was repeatedly whipped with a stick until the pain became too much and she fainted.
“I was in and out of it. I could hear him calling out to his father, who later called an ambulance,” she recalls.
It is a call that probably saved her life.
Ramajaga has been at Nyangabgwe since Saturday morning, and, although still in pain, is slowly recovering.
“This was not for the first time. This relationship has been so abusive and my attempts to have this man arrested bore no fruit. What’s left is for him to kill me because he has come close several times; I can see it in his eyes that he’s capable,” warns Ramajaga, nervously biting her fingernails.
The young lady pleaded with the cops to intervene.
“The police were here to take my statements, but I’ve been told that Smarts is still a free man. He has boasted before that ga a kake a tshwarelwa go betsa Mosarwa (he can’t be arrested for assaulting a Mosarwa),” adds Ramajaga, the fear obvious in her puffy eyes.
However, Tatitown Station Commander, Boipuso Baatweng assured The Voice Smarts had in fact been picked up by the boys in blue early on Wednesday morning.
“He was arraigned before the Borolong Customary Court and charged with assault occasioning bodily harm, although the charge can be altered depending on what the medical report says,” explained the Superintendent, adding the suspect is securely locked up on remand.
He is due back in court next Tuesday.
