BURGERSFORT – Police in Tubatse outside Burgersfort have launched a search for a group of community members who attacked, shot, and burned two men to death before throwing them into the open grave of the wife of one of the men during her funeral, Limpopo police said on Saturday.
It was alleged that the local community were burying one of the murdered men’s wife at the Mashifane village graveyard at about 8am on Saturday morning “when they attacked this man and his friend with various objects”, Lt-Col Moatshe Ngoepe said.
“One of the mourners produced a firearm that shot both of them. They burned them, threw their bodies into the grave, put the woman’s coffin on top of them, and they put soil [in the grave] before they dispersed,” Ngoepe said.
“The police were summoned and reacted swiftly; all three bodies, including the one for the woman, were then exhumed for further police investigations. The motive behind this incident is still unknown, but the police investigations will tell as they are still unfolding,” Ngoepe said.
Limpopo police commissioner Lt-Gen Nneke Ledwaba condemned the incident “with dismay at the fact that some of the community members are still ignoring our continuous earnest call for them to stop these barbaric acts of mob-related attacks”.
“This tendency must stop now and all those who are still perpetrating it will, without any compromise, meet the full might of the law,” Ledwaba said.
Anyone with information which could assist in the arrest of the suspects involved should contact Brigadier James Espach at 082-576-0743, or the crime stop number 08600-10111, or the crime line sms 32211, or the nearest police station, Ngoepe said.
