Special Report Transcript Episode 4, Section 4, Time 14:31

I heard a loud noise, sounding like a machine gun; it was a terrible sound that I couldn’t understand. I cried and I went into the children”s bedroom and I said to them, please we don’t have to go out. We were afraid even to peep through the window. We hid ourselves underneath the bed and we kept quiet. We heard when it was just about to be morning that people were talking outside. When I got out I found many children lying dead on the ground. Their brains were scattered, I didn’t know what happened, because they were dead. // When I arrived home I found that the house had been burnt down at KwaMashu. Our mother had been burnt down completely, she was in ash. // … and one of the amabutho’s, the warriors, said to us ‘ let me see who’s got an axe’ and I heard they were chopping down our doors and they got inside. I don’t know when Gumbulani died, because at that stage I was hiding. I didn’t hide under the bed, because I realised that if I hide under the bed that they’ll kill me cruelly. So, they better kill me standing, so I stood behind the door and I was hiding. And, they got inside, they chopped him in his face with an axe and on his chest, they opened up his chest with an axe. // My sister’s boy was sleeping there. They took this boy outside and I thought […] there’s another one hiding underneath the other bed. He also kept quiet, they said, ‘dress up, let us go’. Another one said, ‘no, bring the gun here, let’s finish him off right inside the house.’ The other one said, ‘no, let’s take him away, we are going to burn him.’ And they said, ‘dress up.’ He got dressed, he was crying. They took him.

Notes: TRC testimony: Gertrude Mbambo (Mother); TRC testimony: Bongekile Sithole (Daughter); TRC testimony: Mrs. Phungula (wife and mother); TRC testimony: Musa Mshengu (Son)