Eleven hearses drove into Mandela Park Stadium in Khayelitsha. Twenty brown coffins were unloaded, and lined up on the field.
|||Cape Town - One after another, 11 white hearses drove into Mandela Park Stadium in Khayelitsha on Saturday. Twenty brown coffins were unloaded, and lined up on the field.
Towards the centre were two small white coffins, carrying the bodies of Ntandokazi Zamubuntu and Lakheka Somfongo, each barely a year old, who were among the 24 people who died in the Hex River pass bus crash last Friday.
The silence in the stadium was eerie as the blue and white church regalia of the Twelve Apostles Church in Christ congregation dominated.
The victims, mostly female members of the church, died on March 15 when the double-decker bus in which they were travelling crashed on the way home from a national women’s prayer meeting in Secunda.
As Dumisani Ximbi, provincial leader of the church, stepped towards the coffins to read out the names of the dead, the sound of people crying broke the silence.
The crying escalated to incessant wailing as Ximbi moved further down the row of coffins, and some women fell to the ground.
Relatives of the crash victims sat under a tent on the field, while the rest of the congregation were seated in the stands, listening to chief apostle and president of the church, Professor Caesar Nongqunga.
National Health Minister Aaron Motsoaledi, ANC provincial chairman Marius Fransman, DA MP Masizole Mnqasela and Labour Minister Mildred Oliphant were among the politicians at Saturday’s mass funeral.
While most of the victims are to be buried at their homes in other parts of the country this week, the congregation held yesterday’s service to remember the 22 victims who were members of the church.
One of the 22, 47-year-old Butterworth mother Yolisa Jacobs was buried in Stellenbosch immediately after the service.
Jacobs’s family was too distraught to speak to the media. Her children stared into the distance and wept as they were comforted by their aunts.
Church member Nomlungisa Joka, 46, who survived the crash, described Jacobs as a woman “who loved praising God in song, even to her death”.
“When the accident happened I thought I would be one of those in a coffin today. I don’t know how I survived. I was on the top level. I saw the bus moving like a mad man. I was still conscious when it slanted, but I was out of it when it eventually crashed. Seconds after that I found myself out in the sun with my lower body stuck between metal. Luckily I managed to pull myself from between the metal and get out.”
She said Jacobs was sitting in the front row on the upper deck.
“When the bus was about to crash people were screaming and crying. (Jacobs) immediately instructed everyone to stop crying and led us in song. We were all singing as the bus crashed.”
Joka added: “She loved singing. If we were quiet she would ask why we were so quiet and ask someone to lead the choir in song.”
sibongakonke.mama@inl.co.za
The available names of the dead:
Thandinkosi Maqamndana, Tantaswa Mbelesi, Nombulelo Mbulawa, Lakheka Somfongo, Nomathansanqa Ngamlana, Nompucuko Ndyoki, Ntandokazi Zamubuntu, Phumla Somfongo, Boniswa Kodwa, Thandeka Sheleni, Makutlosiso Setloboko, Yolisa Jacobs, Noxolo Langa-Jemlana, Nomendile Xatha, Linidiwe Sibobosi, Nomtatela Nkalana, Nokubonga Bene, Babalwa Mbele, Andiswa Dyantyi, Lindelwa Kondlo, Nobesuthu Ngani, Nonhi Mpahleni, Zola Ndamase
Weekend Argus