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Chief Albert Luthuli.
The Pietermaritzburg High Court has heard that harassment from the apartheid government’s security police after the death of African National Congress (ANC) leader Chief Albert Luthuli forced his family to go into exile in 1967.
Luthuli’s granddaughter, Lindiwe Ngobese-Nxumalo, read a victim impact statement on behalf of Luthuli’s grandchildren at the reopened inquest into his death.
The statement is said to correlate with the late ANC leader’s daughter Dr Albertina Luthuli’s testimony last week, that police had regularly invaded her family home to demand important documents from her father.
Ngobese-Nxumalo’s statement reflected the hardships that the family had faced in exile.
“The day we left, so many people came to say goodbye, the image of them waving hands growing smaller and smaller was in our memories. We miss Gogo uNokukhanya our grandmother and the rock of the family. The pain of living was softened by only the letters gogo wrote to him … letters she had been sending since his primary school days.”
“It was her first grandchild and their appointment wasn’t easy … our parents had raised five children on one income. We watched the news as South Africa continued to suffer under apartheid.”
VIDEO | Tuesday’s proceedings of the inquest:
