They have stood at the centre of their settlement from the rising of the sun until sunset for more than a week now.
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Anyone who does not know their story might mistakenly believe the Ndwandwe family is obsessed with the winter sun, but this assumption is far from the mark.
Their sunlight vigil is a result of the traumatic experience which has left the family afraid to set foot in their homestead houses, out of fear their attackers will return to ‘finish them off’.
It was Wednesday last week when 77 year-old Emelina Ndwandwe and her children were attacked in their home in broad daylight, by men who claimed she was ‘in the way’ of a certain man, who sought to occupy and sell the plots of the land upon which her home is built.
“It was just before 11am when those young men came into my house, putting me, my children and my grandchildren through unbearable cruelty,” said the elderly resident, staring into the distance.
Her sight is impaired due to old age.
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One might notice how Gogo Emelina’s eyes flicker in the direction of a person speaking to her when she is addressed, or how her children have to apply ointment and bandages to her legs after they were seriously burned.
The effects of the attack appear to transcend just physical harm.
Gogo Emelina was at home with her two daughters – one of whom is pregnant – and grandson, when four men armed with pangas and other weapons barged in.
The elderly woman listened in terror as the armed men told her this was the day she would die.
“They started to tie our hands behind our backs. They managed to tie me using whatever they had brought with. I assume they had not expected to find me with company, as they then went out to find some barbed wire, which they used to tie my daughters up. My pregnant daughter was kicked about and beaten pretty badly. All this time they stood asking why I was troubling a particular man and why I was not just giving up the land, so he could do with it that which he wanted,” recalled Gogo Emelina.
Read the full story in today’s Vryheid Herald.
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