Great-grandfather’s grave still safe after desecration of family graveyard

MBOMBELA – Botha’s family indicated that they were worried for the safety of his remains, after their other great-grandfather, Andries Jacobus Erasmus’ grave was desecrated on Wednesday evening.

Both of the family members were buried in the family graveyard on the Curlews Road.
Owner of the Mbombela funeral service Martins, Andrie Homann, said it was a common occurrence. He said he had seen it many time before in both the Rocky Drift and Mbombela graveyards as well as ashes being stolen from the wall of remembrance.

“It is only speculation, but I agree with the family that the bones were probably used by a traditional healer,”

Homann said.

As a former policeman, Homann said that he would start looking for the culprits through descendants of those who worked with Erasmus or Botha.

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Erasmus had been buried in the grave since 1951 and by the time his grave was desecrated, his coffin had already disintegrated.

Homann added that whatever was taken from Erasmus’ grave was only enough to fill the coffin of a baby.

“Usually, all that remains is the upper arms, legs, skull and breastbone. It takes a lot of time and skills to efficiently dig up bones like this and usually an archaeologist needs to be present,”

Homann explained. Police opened a case of violation of graves.

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