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Family mourns xenophobia victim
03/06/2008 08:00 - (SA)
Julian Rademeyer, Beeld
Inhambane - Ernesto Nhamuave's son had been awaiting his father's return to Mozambique, excited at the prospect of getting a new school satchel.
Instead, his father came home in a coffin and the boy stood weeping next to his graveside.
Nhamuave's fiery death at the hands of a jeering mob was captured by photographers covering the violent pogrom against foreigners that swept Gauteng townships last month.
The images, splashed across the front pages of newspapers worldwide on May 19, became symbolic of the bloodlust that left nearly 60 people dead, hundreds injured and thousands homeless.
But, until Sunday only a few members of his family knew how Nhamuave, 35, had died in the dusty streets of the Ramaphosa camp near Reiger Park in Boksburg.
Only then did mourners hear a first-hand account of how he was attacked, beaten and burnt. And, for the first time, the village elders got to see the graphic photographs of Nhamuave's death.
He is one of at least 30 Mozambicans believed to have been killed in the 12 days of terror that gripped Gauteng last month.
At least 10 more bodies are expected to be repatriated to Mozambique this weekend for burial.
About 300 mourners gathered on Sunday in the tiny compound of reed huts that once were Nhamuave's home.
Among them was a Frelimo district secretary and Sammy Leshabane, an African National Congress representative from Ekhurhuleni who also happened to be the undertaker.
Shrouded in a white sheet
"I've got six bodies to get back here to Mozambique by Friday," said Leshabane as he perspired in his suit.
"Dove's undertakers has got another four, but I'm thinking of passing one of mine on to them."
Situated along a pot-holed and barely accessible track, the tiny enclave of Pembe-Vuca is more than 1 000km from the place where Nhamuave died.
The women sat on one side, the men on the other. Under a tree, away from the dead man's home as dictated by tradition, a group of women prepared steaming cauldrons of food for the guests.
Nhamuave's coffin had been placed in one hut, shrouded in a white sheet. Above it, was a poster for the ruling Frelimo party.
The coffin arrived from South Africa at 04:00 on Saturday, hours later than expected because the hearse had broken down near XaiXai. Weather-beaten cross
As dawn broke, the mourners hiked through the bush to the place where Ernesto's father, Alfabeto, was buried when he died of tuberculosis 10 years ago.
A glass bottle for flowers and a weather-beaten cross that is now more grey than white marks the spot in the shade of two trees.
There, Ernesto's uncle, Nowa, 63, cast seeds into the dirt to appease the gods and ease the passage to the next life of his nephew whose violent death, tradition holds, had left him in an angry limbo and in the realm of ghosts. The old man cried bitterly.
Then, with a hoe, he drew the outline of the grave in the sand and the men of the family began to dig.
"When I die, take me in your hands, Lord," the mourners sang in Portuguese from tattered hymn books.
Ernesto was buried with his meagre possessions: a pair of Ventura jeans, a bow and arrows, a key-and-bottle opener, his best suit and his shoes which were ripped before being placed in the grave to ensure that no one else could wear them.
Wife broke down at grave
As mourners stepped forward to scoop sand into the grave, tears ran freely. Some of the press photographers who had witnessed his death and attended the funeral wept openly.
Nhamuave's wife had to be helped to the graveside. As she turned away after throwing in a handful of earth she broke down.
The couple's eldest son, Alfabeto, 12, stood next to his grandmother, tears rolling down his cheeks.
His younger brother, Jinercio, looked on numbly. Too young to comprehend the enormity of the tragedy, their sister Virginia, 4, slept quietly.
- Beeld
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