The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) and the Makhado Municipality jointly exhumed the bodies of four members of Umkhontho we Sizwe (MK) at the Tshikota township’s cemetery, outside Louis Trichardt, on Monday.

According to the head of the Missing Persons Task Team, Ms Madeleine Fullard, the exhuming of the four bodies came as a directive from the National Prosecuting Authority, with the main objective of tracing all the individuals who went missing before the new political dispensation in 1994.

“We are here today at the Tshikota cemetery to exhume the bodies of Mr Leslie Moatshe, who is originally from Dobson Ville in Soweto, who was known by his MK name as Vusi; Mr Xola Jebe, also from Soweto, who was well known as Anton Xaba; Mr Geoffrey Ramokopeloa, from Rustenburg, who was known as Daniel April or Tholi, and Mr Joseph Tshinga from Soweto, who was well known as Thabo Mopedi,” she said.

She further said that the four were believed to have been killed at the Spilby farm near Alldays by the security police. “The four were buried at the Tshikota cemetery on November 10, 1983.

Mirror also learnt during the exhumation that the process was conducted in collaboration with forensic investigators from the University of the Western Cape.

The task team, according to Fullard, has already exhumed 50 individuals since its establishment, where 25 of them have already been identified and returned to their families for burial. The others are still undergoing a forensic identification process.

Family members of the four victims also attended the ceremony. On behalf of the family members, Mr Robert Moatshe said it was a relief to the family to take the body of his brother Leslie back home for reburial. “It is always good to bury your loved ones at a place that you will always remember, so we are happy about this process, though one cannot be hundred percent,” he said.