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A man forces open the gate of the property of Mandla Mandela yesterday.
MTHATHA, South Africa: The remains of three of Nelson Mandela’s children were exhumed yesterday to be returned to his childhood village following a bitter family feud over the ailing anti-apartheid hero’s final resting place.
The public row comes as the 94-year-old former political prisoner, who became South Africa’s first black president, lies critically ill in what is now his fourth week in hospital.
In dramatic scenes that unfolded in front of the world’s media, a sheriff forced open the gates to the estate of Mandela’s grandson Mandla with a pickaxe to allow three hearses to enter the property, where the disputed remains were moved in 2011, allegedly without the family’s consent.
It came hours after a court in the nearby city of Mthatha ordered Mandla, 39, to immediately move the graves back to Qunu about 30km away, where Mandela grew up. Judge Lusindiso Pakade described the grandson’s actions as “scandalous”.
“The exhumation has been concluded now. The remains are being transported to the mortuary in Mthatha,” said police spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Mzukisi Fatyela. “They will be kept there until the burial tomorrow (Thursday).”
Mandela has expressed his wish to be buried at his rural homestead at Qunu, and his daughters want to have the children’s remains returned so they can be buried together.
More than a dozen relatives of the revered leader, including his wife Graca Machel, two of his daughters and several grandchildren, took Mandla to court over the dispute.
According to court documents submitted by the family on June 28 to support their case, Mandela is in a “perilous” condition on life support, local media reported. AFP
