One year later, Okahandja murder victims wait for justice
Okahandja remembers. Not in headlines anymore. Not in breaking news alerts. Not in the urgency that once gripped a nation. But in the quiet.
It has been nearly a year since Okahandja became the epicentre of one of Namibia’s most disturbing moments when, between 20 March and 25 April 2025, three young girls were taken, their lives cut short in a way that shook even the most hardened observers.
Five-year-old Ingrid Maasdorp. Six-year-old Roswinds Fabian. Fifteen-year-old Beyoncé !Kharuxas.
Their names once filled the airwaves. Their faces circulated across TV and mobile screens. Their stories ignited protests, prayer vigils and a wave of anger that forced the country to stop and look itself in the mirror.
In late April 2025, as outrage reached a boiling point, President Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah travelled to Okahandja. She stood before grieving families and a shaken community, promising action.
“I don’t want a Namibian child going to school but scared not knowing what will happen when the school closes,” she said.
A high-level task force was established, chaired by gender minister Emma Kantema, alongside education minister Sanet Steenkamp, health minister Esperance Luvindao, and justice minister Fillemon Wise Immanuel, bringing together key ministries to respond to what had become a national crisis.
The killings were no longer just a police matter. They became a test of the State itself.
In the weeks that followed, there was movement—increased police visibility. Community engagements. Public commitments to strengthen child protection systems. For a moment, it felt as if something fundamental might shift.
But a year later, the momentum appears to have dissipated.
Then, slowly, the noise faded. There have been no regular public updates from the task force. No sustained national conversation. No clear accounting of what was implemented, what failed, and what remains unresolved.
Today, Okahandja is calm again. Too calm, one would say. So is Namibia. But the streets carry on. Children walk to school. Shops open and close. Life, in its stubborn way, has resumed.
But beneath that normalcy lies a question that refuses to disappear: what changed?
Psycho-social support
Kantema told Namibian Sun yesterday that she was busy preparing for something and referred questions to the gender ministry spokesperson, Lucas Haufiku.
Haufiku said the task force met with the families and offered psycho-social support.
"Other than that, I am not sure if there was anything else done," Haufiku said, adding that he would liaise with the minister's personal assistant in case there was something else.
Otjozondjupa spokesperson Inspector Maureen Mbeha said she was attending a community meeting. She referred questions to Deputy Commissioner Nawa, who said investigations are ongoing.
"We are busy," Nawa said, adding that they questioned a lot of people in connection with the murders.
A police officer based at Okahandja, who did not want to be named, said the community was not helping.
“No one came out to give reliable information. We are trying our best working from nowhere,” the officer said.
Cold cases
There were others before whose deaths have turned cold.
In Katutura, Delysia ||Garoes, 35, was discovered dead in a riverbed in Damara 15 in May 2025, and no suspect has been brought to book.
Juanita Karolus, 33, was found raped and murdered near the Katutura Youth Complex in October 2025.
In June 2022, Charmaine Saron, 28, was found stabbed to death behind the Hosianah Parish Church in Katutura.
Then there was 17-year-old Magdalena Stoffels in July 2010, who was attacked and killed in a riverbed in Khomasdal.
Police swiftly arrested Junias Fillipus nearby after finding him washing clothes in the same area. He had injuries and garments with suspected blood stains.
Fillipus spent months in custody before forensic evidence failed to link him to the crime, with DNA and fingerprint results excluding him, leading to the withdrawal of charges in 2011 and his release.
He later sued the authorities for unlawful arrest and detention, but the case lost momentum and remains unsolved.
Avihe Cheryl Ujaha, nine, snatched in broad daylight from Single Quarters in Katutura. Her lifeless body was later found near Staanvas Circle in Khomasdal, turning a frantic search into a moment of national grief, anger and disbelief.
Avihe’s story moved quickly at first — police action, public outrage, promises of answers — before slipping into the quiet that so often follows.
Between 2005 and 2007, a mysterious killer took five women's lives and scattered their body parts along the B1 road between Windhoek, Okahandja and further north.
A German-born Namibian man was arrested but later acquitted due to insufficient evidence.
Another man, previously convicted of murder, was implicated after his suicide in 2008, with DNA links raising suspicion, but nothing was conclusive. The police never officially closed the case.
