Torn Apart By Tradition

A woman and her kids, allegedly killed by her husband, haven’t been buried as their families feud over customary rights

- Lubabalo Jonas

HE HAS the haunted eyes of a man who has lost almost everything precious to him. The wall behind Mncedisi Mvinjelwa is covered with photos of his daughter and his grandkids – murdered in their home allegedly by Simthembile Ntombela, his daughter’s husband.

Next to the old man is a table adorned with fresh flowers and cards with messages of condolences from the little girls’ schools. Mncedisi (73) rushed to Cape Town from his home in the Eastern Cape when he got the call telling him the terrible news, but unbelievably there was even more heartache to come.

All he wanted was for his child, Pumla Mvinjelwa-Ntombela (33), and his grandchildren, Nhlanhla (10) and Bajabulile (6), to be laid to rest at the family’s homestead in Whittlesea, near Queenstown.

But Ntombela’s family are refusing to allow the bodies to leave the Western Cape unless they’re to be buried at their family’s homestead in Centane in the Eastern Cape. They insist that because he had paid lobola for Pumla, she and the children must be buried alongside him. Mncedisi’s daughter, Nondumiso, says she has never seen her father, a retired council worker, this rundown.

“I have never seen him so weak. He breaks down during prayer and struggles to sleep,” she says.

Her mother, Nodumisani, is still at her home in the Eastern Cape, but she “is also a mess”.

“Some days she calls and tells us to look after Pumla’s kids. It gets worse when she talks to my kids on the phone because she used to talk to all her grandchildren at the same time. My children are the same age as Pumla’s – they were like twins, they went to the same school.”