For the first time since building his home in Thantseka village 44 years ago, Mlamli Mgxada did not spend Christmas there, enjoying a meal cooked by his wife, Novotile. This was not by choice. Mgxada, 70, was forced to flee his home after his wife, three children and four relatives were gunned down in November.
Police minister Bheki Cele has cast aspersions on Eastern Cape detectives working to solve murders in Mthatha and surrounding villages, saying: “I looked at a long list of murders and attempted murders and a long list of zero arrests.”
Residents of the small village of Tantseka in the Sithebe administrative area, a stone's throw from the Bumbane Great Place, have been left terrified and disbelieving after seven people died in a hail of bullets in one of the rural homes late on Wednesday.
Seven relatives, aged between 29 and 79, were gunned down while mourning the death of another family member in Tantseka village in Sithebe administrative area near the Bumbane Great Place, near Qunu on Wednesday night. The group was allegedly accosted by armed gunmen who demanded R50,000 in stokvel monies, according to surviving family members.