ROSEMARY CHIBANDA:
THE GHOST THAT TERRORISED ZAMBIA
In the late 1960s, Rosemary Chibanda worked allegedly as a bar lady at Zani Muone .
After losing her job, she reportedly turned to prostitution to survive.
But one night, according to the chilling Zambian legend, several men took her into the bush near a cemetery around Chingwere Turn-off, where they brutally took turns on her, assaulted her until she died.
To hide their crime, they allegedly dumped her body along the Great North Road and staged a hit-and-run accident.
They thought they had buried their secret.
They had no idea what they had unleashed.
Months later, reports began circulating of a beautiful woman in white sometimes in red appearing beside lonely highways, at bus stations and in drinking places.
Men who offered her lifts sometimes discovered, to their horror, that she had goat’s hooves instead of human feet.
Others reportedly woke up naked in cemeteries, while some allegedly lost all their teeth after kissing her.
But the most disturbing encounters happened in school ablution blocks. Pupils claimed to hear a woman’s voice behind locked toilet doors saying,
“I am changing the napkin of my baby.”
A baby would begin crying, but when anyone investigated, there was nobody there.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, Rosemary’s terrifying reputation spread along Zambia’s Line of Rail, from Livingstone through Lusaka and Kabwe to the Copperbelt.
Some believed she was hunting the men who had murdered her.
Others feared that anyone who followed her after midnight might never return.
But the story did not end there.
One night, a truck driver travelling along a deserted road spotted a woman in red. He stopped, and she climbed into his vehicle.
After several minutes of silence, she turned towards him.
“Do you know who I am?” she whispered.
“No,” he replied nervously.
She smiled.
*I am Rosemary*
“Ask the men at Zani Muone.”
The driver looked down and saw goat’s hooves beneath her dress. He screamed and slammed on the brakes.
When he looked up, she had vanished.
Then came three slow knocks from the back of his truck.
Then came three slow knocks from the back of his truck.
Tok. Tok. Tok.
He checked the rear-view mirror.
A pale face stared back at him from the darkness.
Her lips moved.
“Niza kusilizane monse.”
The truck was reportedly found abandoned beside a cemetery the following morning.
The driver was nowhere to be found.
And on the windscreen, written in muddy fingerprints, were the word:
Rosemary
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DISCLAIMER: This is a fictional horror story inspired by the Zambian urban legend of Rosemary Chibanda.
The alleged crimes and supernatural encounters are not verified historical facts and are presented for entertainment purposes only.
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