In a rural community northeast of Johannesburg, impoverished residents often ventured into a nearby pig farm to scavenge for discarded food.
Tragically, a routine search for leftovers by two Black women ended in their brutal killings, allegedly at the hands of the white farm owner and two accomplices.
Maria Makgatho, 44, and Locadia Ndlovu, 35, entered the farm to collect yogurt from a pile of expired dairy goods, which had been dumped by a food company’s truck. Sadly, they never left alive. Their bodies were later discovered in a pigsty, where they had been fed to the pigs.
The farm owner and two of his workers face charges for fatally shooting the women and disposing of their remains. The police found their “decomposed and partly eaten” bodies in the pigpen. The accused are currently in police custody, with a judge postponing their bail hearing from October 2 to November 6.
Authorities revealed that the farmer and his supervisor had a plan to shoot any trespassers. A 45-year-old Black farm worker is also in custody for allegedly assisting in disposing of the bodies.
One of the victims’ husbands, who was with the women during the incident, survived despite being shot. He managed to crawl away and seek medical help.
This incident has reignited public outrage in South Africa, highlighting ongoing issues of racial tension, gender violence, and land disputes between predominantly white commercial farmers and their Black neighbors.
Despite the transition to democracy in 1994 and the election of Nelson Mandela as the first Black president, racial relations in South Africa remain strained.
Economic disparities persist, with white South Africans, who comprise a small percentage of the population, retaining a significant portion of the country’s wealth and land.
In contrast, many Black South Africans face high levels of poverty and unemployment, with nearly two-thirds living below the poverty line, compared to just 1% of white South Africans.
A recent report emphasized that the killings of the two women illustrate the deep-rooted inequalities in land ownership that remain post-apartheid.
Many Black individuals were forcibly removed from their land during that era, and today, most commercial farms continue to be predominantly white-owned, leaving many rural Black South Africans in poverty and forced to scavenge for food.
