CHRISTIAN FIGENSCHOU, Johannesburg and LEONARD NDZHUKULA, Vaalwater | Monday 3.30pm.
FOLLOWING the murders on Saturday of two elderly Cape farmers, a Northern Province farmer’s wife was attacked by four men who stabbed her 16 times at her Vaalwater farmhouse on Sunday evening.
Dina Muller (60) told police that four men, including a soft-spoken farm labourer from a neighbouring farm, attacked her at about 7pm after she opened the door to the farm labourer, who asked for money to buy food. “When she opened the door, the men stabbed her in the neck 14-times before bursting into the house and stealing her .38 Special revolver,” said regional police spokesman, Captain Blackie Swart.
“They left her lying there for dead but she managed to raise the alarm and was rushed to hospital,” Swart added. Muller was discharged from hospital after receiving stitches.
Police in Mpumalanga are meanwhile still searching for the murderers of two provincial farmers last week. Farmer Marius Louis du Preez (36) was killed at Dan Donald village near Ermelo on Friday when he was shot once in the spine while selling milk. Johannes Henry van Heerden (67) died on Thursday after a gang of attackers broke into his farm house, tied him up and beat him severely on the back of the head before gagging him with a pair of socks and fleeing with his bakkie.
On Saturday, a retired Spoornet worker, Andre Stander (65) was murdered on his farmstead in Dysseldorp near Oudtshoorn in the southern Cape. Also on Saturday near Grahamstown, bedridden dairy farmer George Wylie (76) was shot dead in his bed by two armed men, who then stole four firearms, including an automatic rifle.
Meanwhile, the proposed special summit on farm killings will probably only take place in October instead of September because of President Nelson Mandela’s international commitments, presidential aide Parks Mankahlana said on Monday.
He said consultations are taking place this week on a suitable date and an announcement would probably be made by Safety and Security Minister Sydney Mufamadi in Pretoria on Saturday.