Mass graves haunt community

The shallow graves have remained untouched for the last 29 years. Villagers interviewed said there was need for the government to allow them to exhume the remains and facilitate proper burials. The villagers said they were living with the horror of knowing there were remains in mass graves that had not been given proper burials in 29 years. Some of the graves, the villagers said, were now haunting school children as they were situated inside school grounds.

“There is no peace in this area. There are graves that have not been attended to since the independence. What we have here are shallow graves whose remains, according to our cultural values, should be exhumed and accorded decent burials. But someone somewhere has decided that this situation should remain as it is as we have been ordered not to touch the graves,” said Lovemore Ncube, an elder in the area.

Five of the shallow graves housing the remains of villagers killed in the area during the liberation struggle are situated inside Amandlethu Secondary School in the area. Former legislator for the area, Njabuliso Mguni told this newspaper the issue of the graves had become a bitter pill for the people in the area. “I tried to discuss that with some officials but they were adamant no-one was supposed to do anything to the graves. We tried raising the issue with local government officials here and they also said no one was supposed to touch the graves,” Mguni said.

He added that villagers had complained the spirits of those that had been killed were still not appeased as per traditional custom. “Traditionally, we are supposed, as a black people, to hold traditional ceremonies where we will appease the spirits of these people. But because there is an order that bars people from doing anything to the graves, that custom is yet to be undertaken. There has also been no reconciliation with the victims of the deceased as no one has come forward to admit having been behind the killings. So forgiveness is impossible,” said Mguni. He highlighted that some of the children whose parents were killed during the war of liberation still did not have any birth certificates- a situation which he said had made life difficult.