Community leaders and residents of Leliefontein in the Kamiesberg Mountains near Garies in the Northern Cape have plans afoot to commemorate the first and biggest massacre in the history of Namaqualand that happened during the Anglo Boer War also known as the South African War.
This was when more than 35 inhabitants of the town were wiped out by Boer Commandos under Commandant Manie Maritz in January 1902.
At the church in town SABC News met Katie Beukes and Shirley Links. Both are direct descendants of some of the slain Leliefontein inhabitants. They tell the story of the massacre as told to them by their forefathers.
“My great-grandmother told us that her father Gert links was murdered at the Xun Xabba stone. That day they fled to Nou-river. When they got there they realized that the people of Nou-river also fled. There they got food and clothes and fled further with the gravel road towards Springbok,” explained Beukes.
Links is teary when she relates the story of what happened at the Xun Xabba Stone that fateful day.
“My mother told us that her uncles Jakob and Gert links were shot at the Xun Xabba stone. It was sad. The stone was divided in two and it was high. The bodies fell in between the stones. Nobody was buried and the bodies lied strewn all over. It was a blood bath,” said Links.
Community leaders felt the need to have this day remembered, so that the history of this town is made known.
“This is a story that was never told. It is not written up in the South African history books. It was the biggest massacre of the 19th century and that is why it is important for us that this story is made known,” said Community Convener, Louis Van Wyk.
The commemoration of the Leliefontein massacre will increase pride among communities, and hopefully educate the communities of Namaqualand about their almost forgotten and rich nineteenth century history.
