Twenty-one years after losing their sons to the anti-apartheid struggle, 10 families could finally be able to bury their remains, which are being recovered from unmarked graves north of Pretoria.
Anthropologists resumed their search at the Winterveldt cemetery on Thursday for the remains of four activists murdered in 1986 and buried in paupers’ graves.
The four and six others, known as the Mamelodi 10, were abducted by security police in June that year, drugged and burnt to death in a minibus.
The search for their remains started in March, since which time the bones of six potential matches have been found.
National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) spokesperson Makhosini Nkosi said the remains will be subjected to DNA and forensic testing to verify who they belonged to.
They will then be handed over to the deceased’s families for proper burial.
Experts stood six feet deep in the graves on Thursday, carefully brushing the soil from decaying skeletons.
After briefly examining the contents of one grave, the team started shovelling the earth back in, explaining: ”The coffin’s too nice.”
Paupers were buried in cheap coffins made of ”something akin to cardboard”, said one.
The search is being hampered by the fact that there are no plans of the cemetery, no grave markings and no record of where the 10 were buried.
The digging was preceded by months of interviews with the perpetrators, officials, undertakers and even gravediggers of the time.
The Mamelodi 10 were killed by members of the then Northern Transvaal Security Branch when they were aged between 15 and 22.
They were Jeremiah Ntuli, Morris Nkabinde, Samuel Masilela, Jeremiah Magagula, Abram Makolane, Stephen Makena, Sipho Sibayoni, Thomas Phiri, Elliot Sathekge and Rooibaard Geldenhuys.
Huge challenge
The NPA has been tasked with resolving missing-persons cases arising from evidence that emerged before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which investigated apartheid-era political crimes.
Nkosi said the authority received 477 cases from the TRC.
”We aren’t going to be able to solve a lot of these cases,” he said at the exhumation site. ”A lot of people were murdered and fed to crocodiles or thrown into crocodile-infested rivers. Some were blown to pieces and some burnt to ashes.”
Many died in exile, and their bodies will be nearly impossible to find, Nkosi said.
”We have every intention to pursue each and every case. But there are some cases that just cannot … be solved.”
The first five bodies to be exhumed by the NPA, prior to the Winterveldt diggings, were handed over to their families last Sunday.
The Department of Justice and Constitutional Development is helping affected families with the burials.
Hunt for another activist
Nkosi said investigators combing the Winterveldt cemetery are also looking for the remains of another anti-apartheid activist murdered by security forces in 1987.
The activist, whom he declined to name, had been tied to a tree, drugged, burnt and then had limpet mines attached to his chest, which were then detonated.
The man’s skull, vertebrae, ribcage and feet are believed to have been buried at Winterveldt, Nkosi said.
The NPA has set up a special missing-persons task team since receiving a presidential instruction in 2003 to finding the remains of murdered activists.
Six South African students, under the guidance of Argentinian forensic anthropology experts, are part of the team searching for the Mamelodi 10.
”As the NPA, we have been greatly touched by the kind of response we get from the families of those people whose remains we find,” Nkosi said.
”There are many people who have suffered over long periods of time, 30 years in some instances, not knowing what happened to their loved ones.
”This is an opportunity for us to do something that is positive.” — Sapa