Woman hopes to identify dad’s remains

Published Mar 31, 2015

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Durban - “Nothing would make me happier than to finally know what happened to my father.”

These are the words of Busisiwe Msabala, 38, daughter of a former prisoner at Glenroy Farm in Dududu, where mass graves were discovered last year.

Msabala, who lives in Folweni, said her father, Themba Mthiyane, was a prisoner at the farm around the 1970s, but disappeared when she was still very young, and no one had ever heard what had become of him since.

“According to a woman who was a neighbour of my father’s back at his home in Ndwedwe, who once came to visit a relative at the farm, he went home for a visit, but fell very ill and was admitted to oSindisweni Hospital. She said she never heard what happened to him thereafter,” Msabala said.

“My mother doesn’t know exactly where my father was from, and we couldn’t track down his family to try and find out what happened to him,” she said. “If it turns out he is one the people buried in the graves, we will be very happy because we will now know what happened to him and get closure.”

Daily News’s sister paper Isolezwe reported on Monday that Msabala’s mother, Ntombi Msabala, 70, said she had met Mthiyane while she was also working at the farm.

He had been brought to the farm from Westville prison by car, and made to work with non-prisoners because the boss liked him, she said.

“He was very much liked by the boss, and was not made to wear sack clothes that were normally worn by other prisoners. He came to work with those of us who were not prisoners. We ended up in love and had a child together (Busisiwe),” she said.

Speaking further on the life of workers on the farm, Msabala (Ntombi) said prisoners’ lives were completely separated from theirs, and was mostly kept a secret.

Every now and again, once at work, they would hear about the burial of a prisoner who had been killed by another, she said. “We have never even seen those graves in which the prisoners were buried, because it was all done secretly,” she said.

Spokesman for the KZN Department of Arts and Culture, Lethukuthula Mtshali, said all those who would like to come forward with information such as Msabala’s, or any other, should get in contact with Muzi Hadebe, who is a senior official in their oral history department.

They can contact him on his e-mail address at [email protected], or on the number 033 341 3049.

The KZN premier’s office spokesman, Thami Ngwenya, said they had sent a letter to President Jacob Zuma last week and were expecting to have all information in terms of how investigations into the gravesite will be carried out by Wednesday.

“We will be able to communicate then how the whole process of investigation is going to take place,” he said.

Daily News

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