AFTER their first day at school, Philisiwe Mpanza's two daughters will be anxious to return home to hear how long their mother's killer will rot in jail

The opening of coastal schools today coincides with the sentencing of Umzinto serial killer Thozamile Taki in the Durban high court on 13 counts of murder and robbery.

Philisiwe and her sister Nonjabulo were two of his victims.

The Mpanza family yesterday said they would drop Philisiwe's daughters at school before they headed for the court to hear the sentencing of the man who killed so many women in cold blood.

Taki was arrested in 2008 after he was found with cellphones, bank cards, child grant cards, CVs and ID documents belonging to 13 women whose decomposed bodies were found buried in shallow graves in sugar-cane fields in Shayamoya, Umzinto, and in the tea plantations in Port St Jones, Eastern Cape.

The children's uncle and aunt, Khetha and Samke Mpanza, took the children in after the death of their mother.

They said the children was very excited about going to school. It was the younger 7-year-old sister's first day at school.

"They will be dressed in new school uniforms from head to toe. They are very excited," their aunt Samke said.

"To complete the day there will be a special lunch, including ice cold juice and their favorite snack," she said.

The Mpanzas was a little worried about the elder child, who is anxious about what the sentence will be.

"They are both missing their mother and their first day of school would have been even more special had their mother still been alive to take them to school," Samke said.

The dead sisters' only brother, Khetha Mpanza, could not hide his anger against the man responsible for the murder of his sisters.

"The court should lock him up for life," he said.

"Life imprisonment would not bring them back, but at least he will not be outside to hurt other women.

"I am angry that so many women were killed, and I am angry that I will never see my sisters again."