Angry residents of an Umtata settlement are awaiting
postmortem findings on the exhumed bodies of followers of a shadowy group that
allegedly brainwashed people.
Five years ago, Sinoxolo Dukuza dreamt of becoming a social worker.
On Wednesday her brother, Theo Dukuza, identified her body at the Port St Johns
police mortuary.
The 29-year-old
Tsolo woman's body was one of eight exhumed on Tuesday in the garden of a
doomsday cult's compound in the Mandela Park settlement, Umtata.
Fifteen members
of the Awaiting Christ group have been arrested in connection with charges of
defeating the ends of justice and burying people illegally. They are expected
to appear in court on Friday. Possible murder charges are also being
investigated.
At the mortuary
on Wednesday, family members came to identify their loved ones and now await
news of the postmortems.
Sinoxolo Dukuza
was in matric in 1997 when she abandoned her studies to join the cult with four
other family members.
"A woman
who claimed that she was a prophet convinced my mother, two of my brothers and
my two sisters to give up everything and join her church. She told them that
Jesus Christ was coming in December and that they would only be saved if they
joined them," Dukuza said.
When December
came and went, Dukuza tried to convince his family members to leave the cult.
"I was accused of being the devil, and my family were warned to keep away
from the 'worldly people' - that's what they called people who were not part of
their cult."
Mandela Park
residents, who were told that the compound's garden would be dug up and the
house bulldozed, gathered at the compound and speculated where more bodies
might be buried.
Since the
Awaiting Christ group arrived in Mandela Park six years ago, the residents
tolerated - but remained suspicious of - its members.
Now they are
outraged, and want to know how the present state of affairs was allowed to
develop. They also want to know what has happened to Nokulunga Fipaza, the
cult's leader, who was confined to a wheelchair following a car accident three
years ago.
Reports that
Fipaza had been arrested after evading the police for a week could not be
confirmed on Wednesday night.
"There are
a lot of evil forces at work here," a 36-year-old man from Mandela Park
said. "They (members) only spoke to us (non-members) to beg for food or to
try get us to join."
Mandela Park
community leader Chief Jonas Ndzambule said: "The members of the cult kept
to themselves and we only discovered their strange beliefs a few years after
they arrived.
"They had
been chased away from Port Elizabeth, East London, Mount Frere and Cambele
location in Umtata, before coming to Mandela Park. They are dangerous and I
hope that this is now the end of them," he said.
According to
Ndzambule, the Awaiting Christ group would not allow children to be sent to
school, did not believe that the sick should be treated and did not allow
members to work.
He said he
complained to the Eastern Cape government, saying children not attending school
was illegal. He was told that the matter would be investigated, but heard
nothing.
When the police
raided the Awaiting Christ compound and arrested the 15 members, Ndzambule paid
to send the rest of the cult's members back to where they hailed from.
"I don't
think they'll come back. If they do, the community will burn them - there is no
doubt of that."
The members of
the cult claim that the eight dead people - the first person was buried in 2000
and the last was buried last month - had died of natural causes, but Mandela
Park residents suspect they were murdered.
Ndzambule
called for the cult members to be charged with murder. "If a person is
sick and is denied access to health facilities... that is murder," he
said.
Dukuza was one
of the main instigators in exposing the bodies buried at the compound.
He said he had
had vivid dreams about the death of his sister, and on June 13 he went to the
compound and demanded to see her.
"I told
them that I would not leave until I saw Sinoxolo. Eventually my mother told me
that my sister had died," he said.
On June 17,
members of another family also went to the Awaiting Christ compound and
demanded to see their 24-year-old son. They were told that he had gone to
worship in KwaZulu-Natal.
Dukuza and
members of this family then went to the police, prompting the investigation
that led to the grisly discovery of the shallow graves in the compound.
Dukuza's
mother, a younger sister and his two brothers - who are among the 15 facing
trial - are now living with him.
"My mother
and my brothers have been brainwashed. They still believe Jesus is coming to
fetch them.
"I spoke
to my brothers about what they wanted to do now and they just told me that they
are waiting for the spirit (of the Lord) to tell them what to do," Dukuza
said.