Hillary Gardee to be laid to rest on Saturday – Family calls for respect and no drama

The Gardee family has announced that the burial of Hillary Gardee, the slain daughter of former Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) secretary-general Godrich Gardee will take place on Saturday.

Gardee family spokesperson Sinawo Thambo was briefing the media on Thursday outside the family home in Mbombela on its funeral arrangements of Hillary.

The funeral will be held at the Church on the Hill, Kwamagugu Township in Nelspruit, Mpumalanga.

Hillary’s body was found in an area just outside Mbombela, previously known as Nelspruit, in Mpumalanga four days after she was reported missing.

The 28 year old was last seen on Friday at Spar Supermarket in Mbombela.

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Thambo conveyed the Gardee family’s appreciation to South Africans, political parties, institutions and NGOs for their support.  

“As the family, we’d like to extend our appreciation once again to the general public, to the people of South Africa for their consistent support in consoling the family and launching a campaign to find Hillary and permanently being there and sending condolences.”

Thambo said the Gardee family will extend individual invites to the funeral in an attempt to curb the number of mourners.

“We will be making those preparations. Members of the EFF, the leadership of the EFF, and members of the family will be present at the funeral. The extended family in terms of Hillary’s side, which is Nigeria, has sent their messages of support. They are also extremely distraught and they will be attending the proceedings in a virtual platform due to the short notice of everything that is happening and also their grappling with the situation of losing their daughter.”

“Let us not cause a stampede or flood the funeral. We will be extending invites. We do, of course, understand that this is a national tragedy, but let us also have a sense of humanity to respect that the family is in mourning and not turn the burial into a spectacle,” said Thambo.

Thambo said the family wants to finalise Hillary’s funeral with dignity but could not immediately say if the funeral or service would be open to the public.

Meanwhile, police continue to search for Hillary’s killers.

Police Minister, Bheki Cele, along with national police commissioner, General Fannie Masemola, visited Gardee’s home and revealed that the police have set up a 72-hour activation plan to find the suspects.

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