According to Mrs Jenny Veldman, she and her family had to remove her father, 87-year-old Mr Danie Oberholzer. The problems started on Monday, 16 September, when a neighbour shot a man on his farm. Although the police had arrested the suspect, some of the squatters from the nearby Mpahla Village started swarming Oberholzer’s farm too.
“We could not get to my father and called the police in Fochville to help. But they said it was too dangerous to go in. In the end, security personnel from Gladiator tried to help us,” says Veldsman.
The situation was dire as there is no cell phone signal in the area and the family could not communicate with her father.
After an earlier attempt had failed, the family and security staff ma- naged to get Mr Oberholzer, his wife and helper from the farm at around 23:00.
This was not the last of their problems, however. As there was only enough time to grab a few pieces of clothing, all the goods in Mr Oberholzer’s house and sheds, two tractors and livestock were still on the farm.
When the family wanted to return to the farm to remove them, they again asked for help from the police in Fochville. Last Thursday, a police captain promised the family that a police van would accompany them the next morning but no one turned up.
“At first, a woman from the squatter camp who was identified as a leader refused to let us enter the farm. They only let us through after we explained to them that my father had nothing to do with the shooting. Two people from this area went with us to the house and watched as we started loading some of my father’s things,” says Veldsman.
During that time, the two squatters who accompanied them stole some of her father’s belongings and prevented the family from removing his things.
“The goods were already loaded onto the two trailers but they set fire to the grass all around us and we had to leave,” she says.
By Monday, when the family returned to the farm, the house had been plundered and stripped. A garage full of metal goods was emptied and the tractors had been set alight after their front wheels were removed.
Even the burglar bars had been stolen from the house’s windows.
“My father has Alzheimer’s and we have found a home for him in Randfontein. He cannot understand why he cannot go back to the farm where he was born. At least four generations of our family have lived and grown up there.
“People are sometimes quick to judge but they don’t know the whole story of what is going on,” she says.