Frank Maponya

Frank Maponya

Pupils at a primary school were excited when they were told to go home early yesterday, little knowing they were being shielded from seeing the mutilated body of a dead man lying in the school premises.

Their shocked teachers sent them home after they had found the lifeless body of the man, who had serious axe wounds to his head and body.

"We are grateful to the authorities at the school for acting professionally by shielding the pupils from viewing the body," Ndo Mangala, spokesman for the provincial department of education, said.

"The sight would have traumatised them."

Teachers at Pipa Primary School at GaMaphahlele in Limpopo, who had arrived at the school before the pupils, recognised that the body was that of Alex Sedi, a contract worker at the school.

He was aged in his mid-50s.

According to a source in the area, Sedi was a foreman for a construction company that had won a tender to build eight toilets, a nutrition centre and six classrooms at the school.

Mangala said that after the teachers had found the body and sent the pupils home, "police and undertakers were then summoned to the scene".

He said the undertakers had quickly removed the body.

"We now expect normal lessons to resume tomorrow (Tuesday)," Mangala said.

Bolobedu police spokesman Captain Freddy Maenetja said Sedi had multiple wounds on his head and body.

Maenetja said it appeared he had been hacked to death with an axe.

Maenetja said two people who worked with Sedi had been held for questioning.

He said police were also investigating the motive for the killing.