Riots victim's daughter recounts 40 years of trauma

DOUBLE TRAGEDY

- YOSHINI PERUMAL

YADITHA Reuben-Murray recounts the horrific murder of her father, uncle and cousin during the 1985 Inanda riots when she was just 11 years old.

Decades later, her family faced another tragedy when her mother was murdered in 2022, reopening old wounds and raising questions about justice delayed.

Her dad Anand Reuben-Murray, 39, uncle Rooplall Ulassi, 45, and Ulassi’s son Sanjay, 16, had been stabbed multiple times with assegais and spears before they were necklaced and burnt to death a week after the riots, when the situation was still volatile.

Yaditha said the trauma of having her family members “run for their lives” and flee their homes with nothing but the clothes on their backs was a memory that would haunt her forever. She said the devastation was unbearable when police went to their home to notify them that her dad, uncle and cousin were the ones who were found dead on August 14, 1985.

“A few months before the riots, we had moved to Phoenix. When the riots began, my mother’s sister's husband (Rooplall) and their son (Sanjay) came to live with us, while my mother’s sister and their three other children sought refuge with my grandmother.

“My uncle had trouble with his car, and he and my dad had attempted to fix it, but they needed spares and took a taxi to another part of Phoenix to buy the part. They took Sanjay with them. My siblings and I were doing our homework when we watched the violent attack on three men in Inanda, on the news. Two of them were burnt beyond recognition. We called our mother, Rita, to also watch the news. Together, we prayed for the families of the men and we said it was such a sad thing. We wondered which family the men would have belonged to and we were in shock as to how people could do something so gruesome.