Following the brutal killings of a Harrismith farming family, Free State Agriculture has pleaded with farmers in the province to support its rural safety strategy and to engage with community policing forums.
This, says FSA rural safety committee chairperson Jakkals le Roux, is important to “effectively address the crime wave targeting rural communities together with the police.”
A man-hunt is currently underway after the bodies of Mgwenika Twala, a farmer, and his wife, Selina Maloka, and three children were found on the Toekomsrus farm. The children were 6, 16 and 19.
FSA president Francois Wilken says the organisation strongly condemns the murders that took place on Saturday, 7 August.
The police are trying to gather clues after all family members were stabbed several times with a sharp object.
According to FSA the family is one of several living on a farm allocated to beneficiaries by the government in a land claim.
“A safe and sustainable agricultural sector is crucial for food security and such brutal killings where women and children also fall victim to serious violent crimes are strongly condemned and must be fought with the utmost seriousness by the criminal justice system,” says Wilken.
Tommie Esterhuyse, vice-president of FSA, thanked the police for their prompt action in that two people had already been arrested for the murders. “The agricultural sector cannot allow such barbaric action against any producer, whether commercial, emerging or subsistence farmers, their families and residents on farms.”
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