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Party turns into nightmare
13/06/2006 08:31 - (SA)
Danel Blaauw
Bloemfontein - The 16th birthday party of a girl at Loch Logan park in Bloemfontein turned into a nightmare when seven armed robbers broke up her party and robbed the family.
Sybil Myburgh, 16, a Grade 10 pupil at the Fichardt Park high school, also missed her Afrikaans Second Language paper for the June exam because of the robbery.
Her father Rudi Myburgh with a knife held to his throat was forced to watch one of the thieves also holding a knife against the throat of his seven-year-old son Duvan.
"I wasn't scared," the little boy said on Monday at their house in Amie Pretorius Street in Fichardt Park. "I was only scared they wanted to kill my dad. I got a big fright."
The Myburghs celebrated their daughter's birthday with an excursion and a braai at Loch Logan park.
Hands touched them all over
Louwtjie Lourens, 17, and Ryno van der Walt, 17, both Grade 11 pupils at the Sand du Plessis high school, had come with them to celebrate Sybil's birthday. The small group was seated around a table at the picnic and braai area at about 15:10.
They were busy packing up when seven armed men came rushing at them out of the blue.
Six of the men were armed with knives and one had a 9-mm pistol.
"The attackers immediately rushed at all the men in the group," said Maxie Myburgh. "They immediately held all the men, including little Duvan, with knives against their throats."
She said one man, who looked like the leader, watched the robbery from a distance.
She said the thieves searched the small group simultaneously.
"We were helpless. There was a thief for each of us," she said. "Their hands were immediately touching our bodies. They felt us all over while they pulled off our jewellery and searched for cellphones."
Sybil, who was still sitting at the table, was pulled over backwards by her hair.
"The man pushed his hand down the front of my blouse and grabbed my cellphone," she said.
She had hidden the phone when she saw they were going to be robbed.
Duvan and his younger sister Sonique, 4, were next to their father when a thief threw him to the ground and threatened him with a knife against his throat.
"The little ones began screaming and went crazy," his wife said.
"I just screamed that they must leave the children alone and take whatever they wanted," the father explained.
Myburgh said the thieves then walked away nonchalantly with their loot.
Sybil ran after them for her cellphone and one attacker threw her SIM card back at her.
Myburgh followed the thieves in his bakkie, but lost their tracks in the stream.
"I'm in a state today," he said. "My biggest worry was that they would rape my wife and child."
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