Human Rights Violation Hearings — Durban — 1996-08-30

COMMISSIONER: And we also welcome him here today.  Before you tell your story can you please stand to take the oath.

FLORENCE MKHIZE: (Sworn, States)   (Through Interpreter)

COMMISSIONER: Dr Magwaza will help you now.

DR MAGWAZA: We greet you, Florence.  We thank you also for coming forward today.  What is your son's name?

WITNESS:  It's Siphamandla Mkhize.

DR MAGWAZA: We are happy to see you as well.  Florence, we will ask you to begin with your family.  First relate to us your family.  We are a family.  We have three children.  Two died.   We stay in - we reside in Inanda.  Before we were in King Edward.

DR MAGWAZA: How old are your children?

WITNESS:   Siphamandla Mkhize is 11 years, Ngcobi is eight years, Sisulu is four years.

DR MAGWAZA: You are here to tell us your story about the killing of your son, who was very young at that time.  Please tell us as to what was happening at the time that this transpired.

WITNESS:   It was in 1991.  There was violence in King Edward.  It was on the 13th March at night.  I wasn't at home, but this child seated next to me was at home.  Whilst they were still sleeping - we had an eight-roomed house, big house, and there are burglar guards installed on the doors.  You see, what the children told me whilst they were still sleeping at night the heard the burglar door being shaken, the noise, and Phindile woke up due to the noise of the burglars.  When she woke up she heard footsteps approaching.  You see it's a big house.  She could hear footsteps approaching the last bedroom, and she tried to leave the other bedroom to go to the next bedroom and hid under the bed.  She heard voices.  They were talking.

DR MAGWAZA: Let's just stop right there.  Tell me, at that time when this was happening how old were the children, because they were alone, you were not there?  How old were they?

WITNESS:   The one seated next to me was five and a half, and the other one was one year eight months old.  The third one was not born yet.

DR MAGWAZA: Do you have an elder one?

WITNESS:   Yes.  That one got injured, Andile, and eight years old.

DR MAGWAZA: So there were three children and the helper?

WITNESS:   Yes.  When Phindile left the bedroom to hide under the other bed they entered the children's bedroom.  When they entered the bedroom they asked, they said they were looking for the comrades.  They started shooting suddenly.  Andile, who was sleeping, and the other two-year-old, woke up and cried - started crying.  When Andile woke up they had knives and they started stabbing, and they also had axes and they started chopping.  They started chopping them.  That's how he got injured, because they had stabbed him so brutally on the head.  The one who is next to me, the five-year-old, witnessed this.  This other one said, "Don't leave me alone inside," because there were so many attackers.  These people were so many.  They had assegais and different weapons.  And also the other one said, "We have the sister here, Phindile.  We do not know where Phindile is."  They started looking for Phindile in the house now.  With the assegais they were turning the house upside-down looking for Phindile.  And when Phindile realised and heard this she started crying, and they started shooting.  And they shot her under the bed.  They said, "If you came out before we started shooting we were not going to shoot you," but they shot her there and they thought she had died already.  They left her and they took the other child with.  They went into the other bedroom.  My bedroom was locked, and they shot the door and the door fell.  They looked around inside and they took some of my possession in the house, in my bedroom.  We used to sell some paraffin, and they took money.  This child got into the cabinet to hide.  When they were approaching the door, trying to open the door to run away now - this child told me that they were so many, numerous in number, in the house attacking.  When they were opening the door they tried to break to burglar so they could escape, and they took the child with.  The child said, "Don't leave me alone here because I am scared."  They said, "No, you just go to this house.  There's a granny here you can stay with."  He went to this other house that he knew better than the other one that they were pointing him to.  They said, "You go and disappear from us because you are going to get us into trouble."  He went to Mbatha's place and started to knock at the door, but they could not hear the knock.  He had to stay outside there by the door until dawn.  In the morning when the children were getting ready to go to school they saw him sitting outside.  They asked him, "What's wrong?  Why are you sitting here?"  The child related what happened about the attack, and also explained that he tried to knock at night but he wasn't heard.  They gave him some clothes to put on, and some food.  And Phindile, who was shot in the house then, she regained her consciousness and saw the other two-year-old, and the other one also who was stabbed from the head way up to the bottom, and she started calling Andile and Andile could not respond.  She realised that Andile was fatally injured, and the other two-year-old who was there was in blood.  The two-year-old was awake, seated right next to Andile.  He could not walk, and Phindile tried to get the child and crawled with the child a distance, trying to go to some other neighbours.  Blood was oozing from Phindile as she was trying to crawl along with the child as well.  And they went to the Khumalo's place.  They knocked and the lady responded.  They opened the door and she asked, "What's happening?"  Phindile related the story as to what happened.  That's where they spent the rest of the evening.  In the following day in the morning they tried to report the matter to the chief.  Phindile was so much in pains because she got shot, and the bullet penetrated throughout the body.  They went to ... (inaudible) ... and tried to call the ambulance.  She was taken to Montogwelo(?), and the keys remained at the neighbour's place, at Khumalo's place.  Other members of the community did try to get in touch with me.  I was working at Kupugani in the nutrition department.  That day I was not at home.  My husband was at Inanda, working there.  So that's where I spent the night.  I spent the night at Inanda with my husband.  In the morning I woke up to go to  /attend a