A BUA community is reeling from the shocking murder of a baby girl who was allegedly bashed to death by her father in a ritualistic sacrifice to "save his district spiritually".
Fourteen-month-old Sadikuini Yalewavukivuki was allegedly murdered in front of her mother Valetina Dimae, 29, at their home in the Lekutu District School compound on Saturday morning.
Reliving the incident, a distraught Mrs Dimae said her husband locked them up inside their bedroom and repeatedly punched their daughter in the head until she lay motionless.
"We had prayers from about 3.30am to 5am and he left us saying that the Holy Spirit had spoken to him to visit the pastor at Lekutu Village," she said.
"When he returned home about 8am he told us me, my daughter and a 60-year-old aunt-in-law to go into the bedroom and he locked the door," she said.
"He sat on the bed and started quoting verses from the Bible saying there was an evil spirit in the house," she said.
"He called our daughter but she did not want to go to him and started crying. He then told me to breastfeed her but she refused to eat because I had just fed her," she said.
"My daughter started crying, then he grabbed her and said the evil spirit was in her and that he would kill her to exorcise the evil spirit from the house.
"He said that if Abraham could sacrifice his son Isaac as stated in the Bible then he would also sacrifice his daughter as an offering to save his family and district, Lekutu, spiritually."
Mrs Dimae said things happened so quickly and immobilised with shock they watched helplessly as her husband punched her daughter several times in the head.
"Then he told us to dress her up while he went to fetch a van and we all went to Nakadrudru, about two kilometres away, to his parents' house where he told them what he'd done," she said.
Mrs Dimae, a school teacher who is sheltering with relatives in Labasa, said she feared for her safety and would not return to Lekutu.
Police spokesman Atunaisa Sokomuri confirmed the 32-year-old man later turned himself in at the Lekutu Police Post.
"Our investigations are continuing and no charge has been laid yet," he said.
Lekutu villager Rupeni Rokoqele said they heard the pleas for mercy from the house but thought it was a domestic dispute.
A post mortem examination is expected to be conduced today.
