MBOMBELA – “I want to shoot someone before I go.” These were the harsh words that a robber used in conversation with a local family and their friends during a vicious three-hour attack at Eco Eden Bush Lodge on Friday.
Around 22:00 Mr Hannes de Lange was saying goodbye to a guest, Mr Andrew Kay who had joined them for a braai earlier.
As Kay was about to leave, they were overpowered by five balaclava-clad, armed men who emerged from the bush.
Kay and De Lange were forced back into the house. De Lange’s wife, Charmaine and his daughter had just gone to bed, while his son and Kay’s son were playing TV games. Charmaine is the owner of the lodge.
With hands tied with anything the thugs could find, Hannes and Kay lay helpless on the floor. The two 10-year-old boys, two of the lodge’s female workers, and two guests at the lodge were next to be tied up and forced to the floor.
The guests had just returned from a holiday in Mozambique and were socialising with them. The gang immediately started to ask where the cash was being kept and who else was in the house. There wasn’t any cash, but the attackers didn’t believe them. They woke up Charmaine and her daughter. “Please stand up ma’am,” one told them while carefully shaking their shoulders.
The daughter thought it was her dad saying goodnight. The perpetrator shouted at her and forced her to comply. She and her daughter were also tied up.
When Charmaine woke up she reached for the keys to the safe, which agitated one of the suspects, causing him to cock the gun and point it.
They asked her where the safe was. She showed it to them but there was no cash inside. They kept on thinking that there was another one somewhere and continued to assault her with their fists and a crowbar, and threatened to kill her.
“Throw her into the pool and let her die,” one of the suspects told another. “Two of them were very aggressive, but the other three weren’t,” Charmaine said.
With Charmaine’s hands now also tied and forced to the floor, they ransacked the house in search of cash and other valuables.
“They were incredibly calm, and knew exactly what they were doing,” she said. “Everything will be okay, don’t worry. Just keep calm and don’t move,” Hannes told his family while they were on the ice-cold stone floor, praying not to be harmed.
The lodge workers asked the suspects to please just give them blankets, after which they gave each a duvet and a pillow.
“I tried not to look at the attackers,” said Hannes. Their son was then also threatened, and asked “do you love your dad?”, in order to get him to tell them where the money was kept. They tried to intimidate the rest of the victims, when Charamine told them, “Look me in the eye, we don’t have cash on the premises,” after which she was assaulted further.
They took a panga and put it on their throats and then their heads. “They physically and emotionally tried to crack us,” she added.
They kicked Charmaine while she was on the floor. She then had a panic attack. “Charmaine was suffocating next to me, and there was nothing I could do about it,” Hannes recalled.
It’s only then when the suspects decided to leave. “We were never sure whether or not they had left, it just became quite,” he added.
Charmaine’s panic attack subsided. After waiting about 15 minutes to make sure the perpetrators left, the De Langes daughter managed to grip a knife with her teeth. They cut one another loose. Hannes then went for help on his motorcycle.
Capt Dawie Pretorius, local spokesman for the SAPS, said the attackers had fled the scene with two vehicles, but later abandoned one.
Hannes said one of the cars had been recovered in KaBokweni. The SAPS, along with Hi-Tech Security Nelspruit and Bossies Community Justice were quick to arrive at the scene.
In 2000, Hannes’ brother was murdered in a similar crime.
A case of house robbery is being investigated.
