A mother and her baby are dead, and the man who called their family to the scene has not been arrested. Nasiphi Dutywa, aged 41, and her 9-month-old daughter Ovayo were found lifeless inside a bedroom at a home in Soweto, Johannesburg, on 9 April 2026 — and nearly six weeks later, South Africa is still waiting for justice.
According to the family, Nasiphi had made a decision that many women in dangerous relationships are afraid to make. She had told her sister she was planning to leave her boyfriend’s home, taking baby Ovayo with her. It was a brave step — and tragically, it may have been the one that cost both of them their lives.
On the very morning she was due to move out, something went terribly wrong. The boyfriend allegedly contacted Nasiphi’s sister multiple times, saying there had been a serious altercation at the house and urging the family to come immediately. When they arrived, they were met with silence. They found Nasiphi and Ovayo dead in a bedroom — a scene no family should ever have to walk into.
What followed only deepened the family’s anguish. The bodies of Nasiphi and her baby were taken to the mortuary, where they remained for nearly two weeks before being released. During that time, the family says they received little to no communication from investigators about what was happening or what had been found. The silence from authorities mirrored the silence they had walked into that morning.
Nasiphi Dutywa and Baby Ovayo: A Family Left Without Answers as No Arrests Made
It was only later, through the postmortem process, that a possible cause of death began to emerge. The report is said to suggest alleged poison ingestion — a detail that raises deeply disturbing questions about the circumstances surrounding their deaths. At this stage, that finding has not been confirmed through official police channels, and SA Report will continue to monitor developments as they become available.
What is confirmed, and what makes this case so infuriating for those following it, is that no arrests have been made. The boyfriend who made those frantic phone calls to the family, the man at the centre of this tragedy, remains free. For a country that loses women to femicide at a rate that consistently ranks among the highest in the world, the absence of accountability in cases like this one is not just frustrating — it is part of a pattern.
South Africa declared gender-based violence a national crisis years ago. Funding was pledged, task teams were assembled, and promises were made. Yet stories like Nasiphi’s continue to emerge with a numbing regularity that should alarm every single one of us. A woman decides to leave. She tells someone she trusts. And then she is gone — along with her child.
Baby Ovayo was nine months old. She had not yet taken her first steps or spoken her first word. She is gone because she was in the arms of her mother, and her mother was in a situation that the systems meant to protect her failed to prevent. That is the brutal reality that sits at the heart of this case.
We at SA Report are calling on the South African Police Service to provide a public update on the investigation into the deaths of Nasiphi Dutywa and Ovayo. The family deserves answers. The public deserves transparency. And two women — one of them not yet a year old — deserve far better than to become another pair of names added to a list that grows longer every week in this country. If you have any information related to this case, contact the SAPS tip-off line on 08600 10111.