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FARM FUNERALS BANNED AT NSUKA

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MANKAYANE – About 600 people living on a farm at Nsuka, Mankayane, have been banned from burying their loved ones on this land.

The new owners of Donkerhoek Farm 477 issued a notice that funerals and burials were strictly prohibited on the farm – ‘and any farming or all farming activities are also strictly forbidden, unless permission is granted in writing by management’. Farm 477 measures 950 hectares. A hectare is the equivalent of a global standard soccer field.
According to the notice, building of any structure cannot take place on the farm anymore. This also includes the erecting of any fencing. Mining and harvesting is also strictly prohibited as well as littering, dumping, polluting and vandalism.

If the people who currently live on the farm dispose of litter on the land, a clean-up operation will be conducted and compensation will be claimed by the management. Those who own hunting dogs are in for a shock as the farm management has warned that animals that are  kept for purposes of hunting or poaching will not be allowed within the boundaries of the private land. The removal of the hunting dogs will be done, and compensation will be claimed by the farm management. “Unauthorised stock will be confiscated and handed over to the authorities. Removal operation will be conducted and compensation will be claimed,” reads the Notice. It must be said that the funeral prohibition is one of the set of rules which the dwellers or rather ‘squatters’ felt could be a huge challenge to follow as each of the 62 homesteads here has a family graveyard on the farm.

Another contestation is that they had been living at the farm since time immemorial. Others argued that they had known the farm to be their home as their forefathers were buried there.
Sandile Dlamini (30) said they thought the original owner of the farm had neglected it. He said their parents moved to the privately-owned land after the original owner had asked them to look after his sheep which used to graze there. Dlamini, speaking on instruction and guidance from some elderly people, said legend has it that the original owner allowed their forefathers to settle on the land, build shelters and work for him.

 

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