by Adeola Balogun

A 9-year-old girl is fighting for her life after being raped and set on fire by an unidentified man.

The 27-year-old suspected of attacking her is to be charged to court after he allegedly tied up the young girl then raped, strangled and set her ablaze.

The victim is receiving treatment  in the intensive care unit of a Red Cross Children’s Hospital.

According to reports:

A 27-year-old man will appear in the Bellville Magistrate’s Court today on charges of rape and attempted murder.

The girl’s grandmother wept yesterday as she told how she untied her grandchild, who was found lying on rocks on Sunday afternoon.

“I thought she was dead but she asked for water when she saw me,” said the granny.

“She was badly burned but she could speak. She told me that she had begged the man not to kill her but he strangled her, drenched her with fuel and set her alight.

“She said he laughed as she burned.”

The girl, whose parents are not married and whose mother is ill, disappeared on the way to her father’s house on Saturday night. A search ensued.

A neighbour told the grandmother the following day that a child had been found in a nearby field.

“She lay there helplessly,” said the woman. “The top she had been wearing was terribly burned.” The community apprehended a man who had bloodstains on his trousers and was wearing a burnt T-shirt.

The grandmother survives on a state grant and can barely afford to pay the taxi fare to visit the child in hospital or to attend court.