[url]http://www.news24.com/City_Press/City_Press_News/0,,186-187_1370662,00.html[/url]
A YOUNG mother this week watched helplessly as a baboon snatched and ripped open the skull of her only child and ate his brain.
The mother of the dead child, Lettie Goitsimang Tukane (34), told City Press the baboon sank its powerful canines into the skull of her three-month-old son, removed the brain, climbed up a high telephone pole and ate the brain before fleeing into nearby bush.
The bizarre and tragic incident occurred at a cattle post in the remote North West village of Madipelesa outside Pampierstad, where Tukane and fiancé Oupa Goeiman live.
Tukane said her son Neo was sleeping in a bed in one of the rooms while she was busy washing dishes in another room when she heard his screams.
She said when she rushed outside she saw a huge baboon carrying Neo under one of its arms. She tried to scare it off, but the baboon was aggressive and it wanted to attack her too.
"It happened so quickly that by the time neighbours came and threw stones and set dogs on it, it had already eaten the brain and scuttled into the bush. I could not believe my eyes when I picked up Neo.
"He was still breathing and his skull was opened and he was bleeding profusely," said Tukane.
She said Neo was her only child and she hoped he would live because her other children died of natural causes before they reached one year.
She said after the funeral they would contact a sangoma to check if the incident was not witchcraft related.
The incident, the first of its kind in the area, has shocked people in the North West, especially in the areas of Seoding, Sekhing, Madipelesa and Pampierstad.
Petrus Malgas, who tried to help rescue little Neo, told City Press that when he and other neighbours threw stones at the baboon, it climbed up the telephone pole and nonchalantly devoured the child's brain before it fled into the bush.
Saomeng Phalatse of Sekhing said the whole episode boiled down to witchcraft, because it was unheard of that a baboon would eat a human being.