8 November 2017
The Department of Military Veterans, together with the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality, the Sarah Baartman District Municipality and DSRAC will lay to rest seven UDF activists who were were sentenced to death and hanged at Kgosi Mampuru Prison, formerly Pretoria Central between 1987 and 1989. The six remains will be reburied in the Eastern Cape, Kwa-Zakhele,PE on the 11th November 2017 and one of them will be reburied on the 10th November 2017 in Jansenville Town Hall.
As part of a process of restoration and restitution, the Department of Military Veterans is implementing a programme through which the remains of comrades who were killed by the apartheid government are now being exhumed and repatriated for reburial in their ancestral homes. The intent is to bring closure for the many families who had unanswered questions to how their loved ones had disappeared and whether they were deceased or alive somewhere.
The bodies were exhumed for forensic tests and the activist’s identities were confirmed. The remains were then handed to their families for reburial during a moving day-long ceremony in Nangoza Jebe Hall in New Brighton-PE on the 6th November 2017. The ceremony was led by the Minister of the Department Justice & Constitutional Development , Mr Masutha, the MEC for DASRAC Ms Pemmy Majodina, and the Acting Director General of the Department of Military Veterans, Mr Max Ozinsky.
The prisoners whose remains will be buried are Tshepo Letsoare, Benjamin Gxothiwe, Lungile Rewu, Sipho Mahala, Thobile Lloyd, Zwelidumile Mjekula and Raymond Gwebushe.
The Department of Military Veterans aims to honor, restore dignity and empower Military Veterans for nation building.
Details of the reburials are as follows:
Media Enquiries & RSVP’s : Lebogang Mothapa, 073 882 4522 / Lebogang.mothapa@dmv.gov.za
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