Durban - Mlungisi Mncwabe is grateful that his 6-year-old daughter decided not to sleep at home on Tuesday night for she would surely have died, but is heartbroken that eight of her family members were brutally murdered.
Those killed in the attack on their home at EmaBheleni village outside Port Shepstone included two toddlers and Mncwabe’s elderly parents.
Police said they had established that the attackers, who were relatives of the victims, suspected Mncwabe’s family of witchcraft.
“My daughter Nomvelo had decided to visit her mother’s family,” said Mncwabe. “She would have been the ninth deceased, but for some reason after school she walked straight to her mother’s home.”
The attack at about midnight on Tuesday left community members stunned, but the Hawks moved swiftly to arrest two men related to the Mncwabe family.
Acting national police commissioner Lieutenant-General Kgomotso Phahlane issued a statement on Wednesday welcoming the arrest.
Mncwabe’s father, Mantinga Mncwabe, 70, a pensioner, burnt to death when the rondavel home he was in was set on fire. His mother, Shonisile Mncwabe, 60, and six of her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren were hacked to death with bush knives in an opposite rondavel.
“My brother Minenhle Mncwabe, 16, managed to escape unharmed. The attackers left my other brother Sphelele, 23, who is mentally and physically disabled, unharmed,” said Mncwabe.
Another brother Xolani, 16, survived the attack, but was severely wounded.
Mncwabe said he was in Durban, where he worked, when he received a call after midnight informing him about a fire at his home.
“I asked them to call police and the fire engine. They later told me my family members had been brutally killed. I arrived home at about 7am to find bodies.”
He said he had last visited home two weeks before to see his sister Nontobeko, 34, who had been gravely ill. “When I received the call at midnight I though it was to inform me that Nontobeko has passed away, only to be told she had been killed with my entire family.”
Also killed in the attack were Amahle, 12, Amanda, 15 Aphiwe, 3, Andile, 1, and Nontobeko’s daughter Ncuncu, who was less than a year old.
