Horrific Murder in South African Classroom Witnessed by Students

In a country with one of the highest murder rates in the world, not even South Africa has witnessed something this horrific.

A man has been charged by police for walking into a school and hacking his brother, a teacher, to death with a machete, in front of a room of screaming frightened students, according to South African media.

The victim, Guilford Shapo, 53, was a teacher at Mmasehlong Primary School in Ga-Mmasehlong village in the Moletjie area. He was supervising an exam to a class of about forty seventh-graders.

We were alerted by the pupils as they screamed and ran out of the mobile classroom, said the school’s headmistress Noko Moabelo, according to South Africa's Star newspaper.

[Guilford] Shapo was the only male teacher at the school. As women, none of us could take the risk of approaching the suspect.”

Reportedly, villagers who heard the students’ screams raced to the school and seized the machete-wielding man who was still attacking his brother.

Guildford Shapo was later taken to WS Knobel Hospital where he died.

BBC reported that his younger brother Happy Shapo, 40, is now under custody and is expected to appear in court on Thursday.

Khomotso Shapo, the victim’s wife, told local media: “My children are wondering why their uncle, of all people, killed their father,” she said.

Sharon Meso, the aunt of one of the students who witnessed the murder, told IOL News: “She has explained to us how the man entered the classroom and how he attacked their teacher.”

IOL News of South Africa reported that no apparent motive for the killing has yet been revealed, although it is believed that the younger brother had lost his job four months ago.

While the murder rate has been falling in South Africa since 1994, the country still records about 40 killings each day.

IOL News noted that two weeks ago there was another incident ion a school in the same region as the machetes killing.
A parent named Nkele Kgomo went to the Flora Park Comprehensive High School in Polokwane and physically assaulted two teachers.