Family, friends and members of the Maniini community convened at the Christian Worship Centre in Maniini on Friday to mourn the death of Edzisani Matumba. She was shot and killed by her husband, Edward Nelwamondo (44), before he turned the gun on himself on 24 June this year.
Matumba (49), who was a successful businesswoman and philanthropist, was remembered as a strong woman and hard worker. One of her children, Ms Livhu Masala, told the large gathering of mourners she believed that her mother had fallen prey to gender-based violence, and that this was something that needed to be fought.
"We will never again see my mother's charming face; that ever-smiling woman who brought light to the Malelelo and Matumba families, and the community at large. We urge government to fight this epidemic of violence against women, so that the lives of innocent people can be protected."
Masala said she remembered her mother's last day on the earth, when she came back home and summoned the family to gather in her room to pray to God. "Little did the family know that her last words would be a prayer."
She said Matumba always guided them in the right direction and encouraged them to love God and even people who were not related to the family.
Bishop Rofhiwa Madzinge of the CWC branch in Pretoria, where Matumba used to go to worship on Sundays, said she had played an important role in the church community as she was always reaching out to those in need, building shelters for the destitute.
Matumba and her husband (Nelwamondo) were reportedly seeing a lawyer to help them work out some differences between them. On the day of the incident, they went to see the lawyer but when he could not be found at his office, Nelwamondo allegedly went berserk, shot Matumba on the spot and turned the gun on himself. The police found the couple's bodies in a pool of blood inside the lawyer's rented office at the Old Mutual Park building in Thohoyandou.
Nelwamondo was buried on Saturday, 2 July, at Mauluma village in the Nzhelele area.