Hope Modise had planned to spend the night praising God, instead he was brutally murdered after trying to break up a fight over a beer while on his way to church.

Hope Modise had planned to spend the night praising God, instead he was brutally murdered after trying to break up a fight over a beer while on his way to church.

Modise, 23, a member of the Jerusalema Entsha Gospel Choir, was stabbed in the neck outside a shebeen in Jabavu, Soweto. He and his friends were on their way to a church night vigil when they walked past a shebeen and saw one of their friends arguing with another man.

Modise tried to break up the fight and eventually convinced his friend to leave the shebeen.

"When they left, they were unaware that the man who had been fighting with his friend was following them. He caught up with them and stabbed Hope in the neck. My child tried to run but collapsed only a few metres away and died," said his wheelchair-bound mother Anna Modise, 56. - Dudu Busani