Human Rights Violation Hearings — Johannesburg — 1996-05-03

MAVIS MSOMI: (gap in recording before start of tape 20)  ....Before that, Mildred telephoned me at work, I wanted to be very early at the bus stop and was told that Mildred wants to speak to me on the telephone. I said that I didn't want to talk on the phone as I was hurrying for a bus, but I went to answer and Mildred apologised to phone so late but she wanted me to help her organise a surprise dinner party for Ayanda because it was her birthday that day and her parents who would have done something for her, were not there. I agreed that I would prepare something at home and she said that they won't be early as they were first going to a party for a friend who had got a scholarship to go abroad, but they promised not to be long. Well we greeted each other declaring our love for one another and I went home.
 When I arrived at home I prepared everything, I wanted everything to be ready so that when they arrive we shouldn't waste any time.  I stayed there waiting for them but they didn't arrive.  I was expecting them to come at about seven or eight.  7 o'clock went by, 8 o'clock went by, 10 o'clock  we were still sitting with my sister.  At about half past eleven I got worried, I wasn't just feeling well.  Before 12 midnight, at twelve midnight, a telephone rang, I quickly picked it up and I heard a person asking if I was Mildred Msomi's mother.  I said yes it's me and this person dropped the telephone.  I wondered what had happened to these children because I knew it was the station commander calling me and I wondered why he was so rude, what was happening? I kept quiet and my sister enquired at to who was calling. I asked her not to speak yet as I expected this person to call again and tell me the details.  I was wondering if I should call the police and enquire about this incident but reasoned that they would call me if there is something that the children had done.  I was asking myself what they had done and wondering why they would arrest Moosa.  I thought maybe they arrested her because she was driving a car under age but if they should phone I would tell them that she has a licence but she hasn't fetched it yet.  I didn't think of anything bad that might have happened.
 The telephone rang the second time and I thought it was the station commander but this time it was her friend Zanele. She gave us the news that Moosa and Duduze are dead. When I enquired of her what had happened she said that they had been shot dead. I asked her if she wasn't together with them at the party because they were always together. She said that she didn't go to the party.
 I was really surprised and asked myself if my daughter was really dead, and she told me that they were at the mortuary at Mbabane. In my mind I was worried, Zanele and my daughter were always together, how come she didn't go to the party.  I woke my sister who had already gone to bed and told her the terrible news. She wouldn't believe me and wondered how Zanele could have survived when they were always together. I suggested that she may be injured, I didn't want to cry but I just prayed.
 I called my daughter in Lesotho and broke the news that I had heard from Zanele and that the bodies were at the mortuary.  She said that she would phone and seek confirmation from the police at Mbabane and call me back. After a few minutes she called and confirmed that they were at the mortuary, and she was going to Swaziland.
 I called another friend of mine at Mbabane who was working for CTC, this was a family friend of ours and I indicated to this friend that Mildred and others are dead. Very quickly they arrived at my place, these were the friends from Mbabane, a husband and a wife.  Zanele's boyfriend also arrived and I was shocked that these two people could come to my place when Zanele told me that they departed and this other one is also available.  I asked them if it is true that Moosa was killed in Mbabane?  There was no answer, I was only given a hug. I said Mr Petro should talk to them, I think they told him the whole story. 
 It was in the early hours of the morning when I woke up to dress and they took me by car to Mbabane Police station.  On our arrival at the police station the police asked who we were, I told them who I was and they confirmed there were people who had been shot at Tembelihle.  I asked him who shot them and he said that no information has yet been received and that they are still investigating who the perpetrators might be.  At that moment Zanele and another girl, Maniki arrived.  Before Moosa and them were shot,  used to call her with her traditional name Moosa, and she called me and said she wants to tell me something. She and Maniki were involved in an argument and she told me that on the 22nd of May I would be dead. I asked how she knew this and she said that she told me that she would die on that day, and she started crying. I told her not to cry, that it was nothing serious, nobody knows when the other person is going to die.
 It came to my mind that Maniki said that Nomsa would die on the 22nd of May now Nomsa is dead and we have heard that they have been shot at Thembelihle, and I asked Maniki why it happened that Nomsa died on the same day that she indicated that she would die? What happened?  She said that the two of them had made peace, they had made up and there was a reconciliation, but I said to her that she indicated that she would die on that same date and she actually died on that date.  The police took Maniki and Zanele to take their statements.
 After discussions they took us to that place where that incident occurred. We prayed on our arrival and after praying we went back to the mortuary in Mbabane at the government hospital. I discovered that three people were dead, it was Dlodlo Felicia's husband, and Tutu, Mildred's cousin, he was at the university with Mildred, the time they were talking to me they didn't mention that Tutu was also shot dead but I knew that if they were going to attend a party Tutu would also be with them.  
 Well we had a look at them, they were badly injured, they were shot in the heads, the legs, the whole bodies and I realised that my child could never have survived this, because their heads and bodies were sprayed with bullets. While waiting outside the hospital we were told that one of them survived, and we wanted to know further what really took place.  Now this boy said to me that he would take me to the house where one of the survivors still is. Well he took us to that place where there was another friend of Moosa's and he told us that they took that child in hiding in that house but he was sent to fetch clothes.
 Now this other girl hidden somewhere, she wasn't there, because we wanted to see her as she was Nomsa's friend.  Well we couldn't find.

PROF MEIRING: Is that the girl called Candy?

MAVIS MSOMI: Yes that's her.  Well we searched all over for her because the boy already indicated that Candy survived and he told us that there was another girl in the hospital who lost an eye, she's not dead.  We looked for her and found her in the hospital. She was with her mother. She was lying on the bed, badly injured and was in a state of shock so she couldn't talk.  We asked those people if there were any visitors who came and looked at these children, and they said that only one man arrived and they said that it would be a good idea if they removed the child from the hospital as there might be somebody who would come to kill her to do away with the evidence.
 The following day, Candy was brought home
...(intervention)

PROF MEIRING: Mrs Msomi can you give us, after everything happened, there was a funeral, was the funeral taken care of by he ANC or did you have to pay for funeral expenses yourself?

MAVIS MSOMI: No we buried at home with my family and local ANC members donated towards the funeral.