A plucky farmwife with a hunting rifle fought off four attackers holding up her husband on Monday, wounding one in the chest, police said.
Captain Malisela Ledwaba said the attack took place around 8am on a farm along the Botswana border near the tiny Platjan border crossing, located near the Saamboubrug crossing between Ellisras and Alldays.
Ledwaba said four men arrived at the farmstead on foot and asked Koos van Tonder (68) for petrol. A fifth person, a woman, waited at a car parked a distance away.
Van Tonder told them he only had diesel. The men left and later returned and held up Van Tonder’s 32-year-old son, Cristo.
They demanded money, allegedly adding that if none was forthcoming they would rape the women in the homestead.
The men, pointing a pistol at the farmer’s head, then went into the house. Inside, the younger Van Tonder’s 31-year-old wife grabbed a hunting rifle and opened fire on the robbers. She hit one in the chest.
The attackers returned fire but hit neither the couple nor their two sons who had come to investigate the commotion.
The attackers then fled to the car and sped off, but their vehicle overturned some 10km further.
Ledwaba said the wounded man was left with the wreck and later died from his wound.
Police, commandos and an air force helicopter followed up the report of the attack and later arrested two men and a woman.
Ledwaba said they would likely appear in the Ellisras Magistrate’s Court on Wednesday. – Sapa