WHEN Aubrey Sipho Mdletshe packed his bags and left home in 1960, his mother was delighted that her younger son was leaving to study law and would return with a qualification, but that was the last time she saw him.
Instead of pursuing his studies, Mdletshe who was 20 at the time, only spent a few days at the University of Stellenbosch before going into exile in Zambia and joining the ANC’s military wing, Umkhonto Wesizwe (MK).
He died in the country’s capital-Lusaka, on January 1, 1989, a disabled man, stricken by a gunshot wound inflicted on him by an apartheid-regime operative.
Albertina Mdletshe died at the age of 94 in 2008, a heartbroken mother before achieving her dream of getting her son’s remains repatriated back to KwaZulu-Natal for reburial next to his father.
During an interview with Sunday Tribune on Thursday, his sister Tholakele Mdletshe became emotional as she relieved the sadness her brother’s death inflicted on her and the family, but the news that they could finally bury their loved one’s remains in dignity lifted their spirits.
Tholakele was with other family members at the Waterkloof Air Force Base in Pretoria on Wednesday when the mortal remains of her brother and other freedom fighters, who died while in exile in Zambia and Zimbabwe, was returned to their homelands.
An official ceremony was held in the city’s Freedom Park on Friday to mark the occasion.
Addressing the ceremony, President Cyril Ramaphosa said the heroes had decades ago left the country of their birth that was at war with itself.
“They left a country in which the fundamental rights of its people were brutally and cruelly suppressed by apartheid, which was declared a crime against humanity.
“Today, their remains return to a free and democratic South Africa.
“It will forever remain a source of regret that they were never to see the dawn of the freedom to which they dedicated their lives,” said Ramaphosa.
Tholakele said had Mdletshe not skipped the country, he ran the risk of being killed by police, who frequently barged into his Lamontville home in Durban, searching for him.
“They would beat my mother and everyone at home demanding that we reveal his whereabouts, but we knew nothing.
“This forced us to often sleep in the bushes,” said Tholakele.
She said the only thing they knew was that Mdletshe was at the university studying law, the course he loved dearly.
“My mother did not imagine that a 20-year-old who dreamed of studying law could be in trouble with the police for joining the Struggle,” said Tholakele.
She said after Mdletshe was shot, he was hospitalised, arrested and later received a 20-year prison sentence.
“He only served 13 years due to his ill-health and on release, he returned to Lusaka where he lived with the disability, caused by the bullet wounds, until his death.”
Tholakele said the repatriation of her brother’s remains opened old wounds that had already healed.
“His return gives us relief because he will be buried next to his parents,” she said.
Also killed in Lusaka was Luckyboy Theodore Ngubane who disappeared into thin air at age 15 and his family members learned, through his friends, that he had crossed borders.
Ngubane’s family members hardly recalled what political party he was associated with.
“His repatriation is a dream come true because we had been unsuccessful in getting his remains back to the country until both his parents died broken-hearted.
“My cousin and his wife (Ngubane’s parents) travelled twice to Zambia through assistance from the ANC to search for his grave but returned empty-handed,” said Ngubane’s uncle Vusi Ngubane.
He said Ngubane, was known to be an apolitical child, but after disappearing for some months “we received information that he was in exile”. He could not remember which year Ngubane left home but he believed that he died 38 years ago.
“A boy from Lamontville later told us that this boy (Ngubane) was shot and killed in Lusaka.
“We were told that some of their comrades leaked information about the camp he was at and police went there and assassinated them. But that was the grapevine information which we were not sure of,” said Vusi.
He said Ngubane left behind a child whose mother was from Namibia.
Ngubane’s body would be reburied in Empangeni, on KZN’s north coast, next to his father and mother on a date yet to be determined.
Among the 49 former freedom fighters whose bodies were repatriated this week was that of former ANC secretary-general Duma Nokwe who died in Lusaka in 1958.
South African Heritage Resources Agency (SAHRA) senior manager Ben Mwasinga said the remains of more than 1 500 liberation fighters were yet to be returned home.
He said it was hard to say when the repatriation process would be completed.
“It is a very complicated work as we have to visit the cemeteries (outside the country) locate graves, engage with governments of those countries, do exhumations and locate families of the fallen heroes.
“So, I cannot give you the exact time when the process will be completed but this is only the beginning and it is going to be ongoing, whether it takes five or 10 years,” he said.
Mwasinga said former liberation movements such as ANC, Azapo and PAC would be involved in the process as the fighters belonged to their armed wings, like MK, Azanian National Liberation Army and Azanian People's Liberation Army respectively.
Bazi February’s remains was also repatriated. He was an MK member originally from District Six who was killed during a gun battle with the Rhodesian security forces.
Another was Florence Mophosho, an ANC national executive committee member, who died in Lusaka in 1985.
Other included former PAC founding leader Letsholo Edwin Makoti and renowned journalist Todd Matshikiza.
The ANC gave the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in 1996, a list of about 1 000 freedom fighters who died in various countries around the world between 1960 and 1993.