January Madisa’s family can’t visit their dad’s homestead as electric fencing has been put up around it. Picture: Nigel Sibanda/The Citizen January Madisa, 46, says his family has lived on Waterval Farm in Dithabeng, Mpumalanga, for more than a century, but are allegedly being systematically and brutally driven off the land. His maternal great-grandmother and grandmother were both born and buried on the farm.
Madisa said generations of his family worked on the land without wages, paying with their labour for the right to live there, rear livestock and plough their fields. He added several farmers came and went over the years without troubling them or interfering in their lives. But Madisa said everything changed in 2022 when the current farmer, whose name is known toThe Citizen, arrived.
“He introduced himself as the new owner and promised we could stay and continue grazing and ploughing fields. “Two days later, we were instructed to reduce our kraals and fields and, eventually, were given three months to leave,” he said. Madisa said the situation escalated, with their grazing set alight while cattle were grazing, deep trenches dug around their homestead and electric fencing was put up around their home, cutting off access to grazing land and the family gravesite.
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When Madisa’s mom died in September 2023, the family was allegedly prevented from burying her at the ancestral graves and forced to bury her within their homestead. Madisa said their herd was reduced from 73 cattle to 17, while 45 goats were wiped out after being poisoned or shot.
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