PICS, VIDEO: About 4 000 resting places at Braamfontein Cemetery torn apart by looters

The final resting places of an estimated 4 000 people in Braamfontein, Johannesburg, have been desecrated and destroyed.

Looking like a tornado has passed through the area, niches in the walls that hold the ashes of families’ dearly departed have been smashed open, the containers left destroyed on the ground or stolen.

While many families may not still be around, many still are and some plaques had more than one family listed, clearly indicating the cemetery was very much still in use. One of the plaques seen was dated 1914.

Cemeteries fall under Joburg Parks and Zoo, which encourages people to seek options other than burial, including cremation, due to declining space.

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Watch: A view of some of the vandalised ash niches

City Parks took note of the devastation, and said vandalism “of other structures such as fencing, burglaries and theft of steel fencing or engraving on tombstones and aluminium structures continues to be a challenge in combating these transgressions which attract theft”.

It was looking for “immediate solutions” to the problem.

The first cemetery in the city was on the corner of Bree and Harrison streets and was laid out in 1886 when gold was discovered on the Witwatersrand.

It became overrun as the town grew briskly and land was acquired for the Braamfontein Cemetery, where the first burials were in 1888.

It is speculated that the ashes are used by nyaope smokers or people looking for valuables, such as jewellery, stored with the deceased.

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Flo Bird, chair of the Johannesburg Heritage Foundation, said that an old cemetery like this so close to the city was used to bury the people who built the city.

‘They beat me to it’

A distraught Monique Boake, whose grandfather’s ashes were interred at the cemetery, said the condition of the cemetery was heartbreaking and sickening to witness. Boake, from Bedfordview, visited the cemetery to try and find her grandfather after she saw a Facebook post about the vandalism and desecration of the Braamfontein cemetery.

“I came to find grandfather yesterday. Something just said to me, I had to come. I could not leave him unattended and I found his plaque, but not him,” she said.

Boake said she was the only relative in Joburg and had hoped her grandfather was not among those desecrated.

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“That was my first hope, to find him and to find the plaque, which I have done. And then if his ashes had been here, I was going to take them and scatter them in the cemetery where he’s been for like 40 to 50 years now,” she said.

“I wasn’t going to take him or move him anywhere. This is where he has been and I was just going to scatter him here, but they beat me to it.”

Braamfontein Cemetery: Plaques removed

Friends of Johannesburg Cemeteries convenor Sarah Welham said it was discovered on 13 March that the crematorium was damaged when she was approached by somebody on the group’s Facebook page who required assistance to find her father’s ashes in the cemetery.

“She lived in the US. Her father had died here and she wanted to take his ashes back to the States with her and wanted help in finding them,” she said.

“So I found them and then Covid hit and she wasn’t able to get here. So as soon as Covid finished, she said ‘I’m getting ready to come’. And I met her here on 13 March.”

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Welham said they saw all the plaques had been removed from the ashes wall.

“We couldn’t initially locate her father’s niche. But then we found it and she got the ashes and they were intact. But I saw how damaged other niches were,” she said.

“I wrote to City Parks and got an apology from general manager Reggie Moloi and nothing was done. They didn’t increase the security. They did nothing to prevent more plaques being removed.”

Welham said it was overwhelmingly upsetting to see the walls of ashes neglected and vandalised.

“I’m angry. I was in tears. It was just too much for me. We have invested huge amounts of time. Friends of Joburg Cemeteries have been looking after this place,” she said.

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“I have been contacted by a handful of people so far and they are traumatised. They cannot believe they left their loved ones’ ashes here, paid for a plaque and this has happened.”

In one section alone, more than 1 000 receptacles were damaged or destroyed.

– lungas@citizen.co.za