Grief as 4 family members die in Pietermaritzburg crash

Nineteen people were killed when the overloaded taxi in which they were travelling overturned in KwaXimba near Cato Ridge. Picture: Doctor Ngcobo/ANA Pictures

Nineteen people were killed when the overloaded taxi in which they were travelling overturned in KwaXimba near Cato Ridge. Picture: Doctor Ngcobo/ANA Pictures

Published Aug 21, 2017

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Durban - When Nomthandazo Ngcamu saw her father’s lifeless body lying in the dust, her first instinct was to run over to him. She thought he was asleep.

“I wanted to go to my dad and wake him up,” an emotional Ngcamu said on Sunday afternoon. “But the police stopped me.”

Ngcamu lost four members of her family in

, near Cato Ridge, on Sunday morning.

The accident left a total of 19 people dead.

Among them were Ngcamu’s father, Fano, 86; her brother, Siyabonga, 41, and her two sisters, Zodwa, 56, and Zanele, 54.

They were on their way to the Zion kwaNkonyane church, where Fano was a reverend, when they were killed.

Ngcamu would have been with them, had there been space on the minibus.

“But there wasn’t, so I said I would take my car,” she said.

She was just about to leave, when she got news of the accident.

“My sister-in-law called me. At the time, she didn’t know if the people in the crash were from our church or not, but she had heard there was an accident and she said the victims were wearing our church colours,” she said. “I drove straight there.”

Her father’s was the first body she saw.

“Then I saw my two sisters on the side, and I could see my brother’s face too,” she said, “I just cried."

Ngcamu lost her mother in January and she did not know how she would go on.

At 38, she was the youngest of her siblings.

“They all worked. My brother has left three children. The oldest is studying next year,” she said.

She said her family was still in shock.

“They say everything is a part of God’s plan but this, I don’t know ...” her voice trailed off. “I just pray their souls rest in peace.”

The Mercury

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