Reduced to nothing more than a pile of rubble, the tombstones of former Bafana Bafana captain Senzo Meyiwa and anti-apartheid icon and journalist Nathaniel “Nat” Nakasa remain an eyesore for their families.
More than a year after the graves of Meyiwa and Nakasa in Durban's Chesterville Cemetery were vandalised, the families of the late icons remain in limbo, waiting for empty promises by the eThekwini municipality and the South African Football Association (Safa) to be fulfilled and the tombstones to be restored to their former glory.
Nakasa's cousin, Patrick Nakasa, 60, said the family had waited decades for his remains to be repatriated, only for his legacy to be defaced through a vile act of cowardliness.
• 2014 – the year the remains of anti-apartheid icon and journalist Nathaniel Nat Nakasa were repatriated to SA
• R150,000 – the amount spent on former Bafana Bafana captain Senzo Meyiwa's tombstone
• 49 – the number of years it took for Nat Nakasa's family to repatriate his remains
— IN NUMBERS
“Everyone in our family has been crying about this. Up until now nothing has been done.”
Thamsanqa Nakasa, 45, Nakasa's nephew, said while the vandalism was disheartening, the fact that eThekwini had not yet fulfilled its promise to restore his uncle's grave was worse.
“They have made a promise to fix the grave, but government being government they obviously take their own time.”
In 2014, 49 years after he died in his New York apartment, Nakasa's remains were returned to SA, a fulfilment of his last wish to return home.
That same year, Bafana Bafana captain and Orlando Pirates goalkeeper Senzo Meyiwa was shot dead in an alleged robbery in Vosloorus, outside Johannesburg.
Meyiwa's brother, Sfiso Meyiwa, said the cemetery's security needed to be beefed up as the tombstone was destroyed just over a month after being erected in November 2020.
“I don't know how these people managed to get in because they have a guard on duty.”
He said Safa provincial chair and national executive committee member Kwenza Ngwenya met the family late last year to discuss rebuilding the tombstone.
Ngwenya said Safa was prepared to pay for the reconstruction and had even approached a company to do so, but they remain disturbed that police had not made any arrests regarding the vandalism.
He told the Sunday Times that Safa spent more than R150,000 on the first tombstone and was concerned that if no-one was arrested history might repeat itself.
“What if we rebuild it and they destroy it again? We have that big question of the investigation. It's very difficult to continue not knowing who these criminals are.”
The eThekwini municipality did not respond to questions about security concerns at the cemetery, asking that it be “given space to deal with this matter”.
Last month the municipality appealed to the public to report incidents of vandalism at cemeteries, saying that despite “budget cuts in all spheres of government, the city will investigate other ways to further improve security in all its cemeteries”.
The police did not respond to queries about the vandalism of Nakasa's or Meyiwa's graves.
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