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Friends mistook grenade for a ‘sex toy’

Friends mistook grenade for a ‘sex toy’

A HAND grenade that killed two boys and wounded five others at Grootfontein last week had been mistaken for an AIDS-campaign tool, Police at the town said yesterday.

Gustav Cleophas Kazandu, the 14-year-old boy in whose hands the grenade exploded on Wednesday night, had apparently been in possession of the device for more than a week. Although the Police’s public relations department indicated earlier that Kazandu had found the grenade in the bush near his home, Grootfontein station commander Inspector Amon Ndilula says their investigation into the matter suggests that it was picked up at his family’s homestead.The boy had apparently gone to school with the grenade more than a week earlier, and even showed it to his friends there.This had not been reported before the Police started investigating the matter, Ndilula told The Namibian yesterday.The Friday before the grenade was to explode in the midst of Kazandu and his friends, he apparently went to an uncle of his, Ndilula said, who was also unable to identify the object.”He thought it was something used in one of those AIDS campaigns.They even apparently joked that it looked like the penis of an old man,” Ndilula said.The boy left the grenade with his uncle, who Ndilula said is in his early 20s, over the weekend.On Wednesday, Kazandu returned to his uncle’s home, accompanied by three other boys, to collect it.After they left, the older man apparently heard an explosion and took cover.”He says that he thought it was maybe a firecracker of some sort,” Ndilula said.Ndilula says he heard the explosion too, as he had not been far away from where it happened.When the Police arrived at the scene, they found that the grenade had exploded in Kazandu’s hands, and two other boys were seriously injured.One of them, seven-year-old Eugene Remember Mutako, died later that night in the Grootfontein State Hospital.Four other boys suffered minor injuries.According to the boys who survived, Kazandu had pointed out to them that smoke was coming from the grenade before it exploded.Ndilula says the grenade was apparently manufactured in China, and that type of explosive device does not have a wide damage radius.Police are still investigating how the boy came to be in possession of the grenade.During the liberation struggle, Grootfontein was part of what was known as “the triangle of death”, along with Otavi and Tsumeb.Although the Police’s public relations department indicated earlier that Kazandu had found the grenade in the bush near his home, Grootfontein station commander Inspector Amon Ndilula says their investigation into the matter suggests that it was picked up at his family’s homestead.The boy had apparently gone to school with the grenade more than a week earlier, and even showed it to his friends there. This had not been reported before the Police started investigating the matter, Ndilula told The Namibian yesterday.The Friday before the grenade was to explode in the midst of Kazandu and his friends, he apparently went to an uncle of his, Ndilula said, who was also unable to identify the object.”He thought it was something used in one of those AIDS campaigns.They even apparently joked that it looked like the penis of an old man,” Ndilula said.The boy left the grenade with his uncle, who Ndilula said is in his early 20s, over the weekend.On Wednesday, Kazandu returned to his uncle’s home, accompanied by three other boys, to collect it.After they left, the older man apparently heard an explosion and took cover.”He says that he thought it was maybe a firecracker of some sort,” Ndilula said.Ndilula says he heard the explosion too, as he had not been far away from where it happened.When the Police arrived at the scene, they found that the grenade had exploded in Kazandu’s hands, and two other boys were seriously injured.One of them, seven-year-old Eugene Remember Mutako, died later that night in the Grootfontein State Hospital.Four other boys suffered minor injuries. According to the boys who survived, Kazandu had pointed out to them that smoke was coming from the grenade before it exploded.Ndilula says the grenade was apparently manufactured in China, and that type of explosive device does not have a wide damage radius.Police are still investigating how the boy came to be in possession of the grenade.During the liberation struggle, Grootfontein was part of what was known as “the triangle of death”, along with Otavi and Tsumeb.

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