MASERU — The remains of one of the members the African National Congress (ANC)’s military wing killed in the 1982 massacre in Lesotho were on Tuesday exhumed from a Sea Point graveyard in Maseru for reburial in the Eastern Cape.
Vikile Jobo was one of the 32 ANC cadres who were massacred by the apartheid regime’s armed forces that attacked Lesotho on December 12, 1982.
Jobo was a member of the ANC’s military wing Umkhonto we Sizwe.
The exhumation, which was done according to Xhosa traditions, was attended by relatives, friends and former members of the Umkhonto we Sizwe.
Officials from the South African High Commission also attended the event.
A comrade in the struggle, Sipho Mnqayi, told the Lesotho Times that Jobo’s family did not know where he was after he fled the Eastern Cape early 1982.
Even after he was killed by the apartheid army the family was still unaware that their son was among the ANC dead buried along the Seputana stream in Lesotho’s Sea Point village, Mnqayi said.
“They only discovered his grave last year after the exhumation of another former refugee here,” Mnqayi said.
“A former Umkhonto we Sizwe member who is now in the South African National Defence Force was here when the exhumation took place and he was the one who informed the family about the presence of Vikile Jobo’s grave in Maseru.”
