Aug 28

Written by: Dino Estevao
2015/08/28 10:02 PM 

In 1980, the last week of April two South African Defence Force (SADF) helicopters flew low across the border from southern Angola into the South West African(SWA) territory, returning from another battle, one of the many battles that has not been recorded in the military diary. Among the passengers on board the flying machine unknown as omadakadaka, was a nine year old boy, lying on the stretcher. Bullet wounds on both legs, bleeding with a drip hanging over his head. The other passenger was an elderly man, blind folded and hands tied behind his back. He was on his knees with his body leaning forward, his forehead almost touching his head. He coughed and breathed heavily with difficulties. Two men from the war zone, one old and one young, they were survivors, captured during one of many cross border attack. The elder man was to provide information and the younger man needed medical attention. The elderly men with grey hair, tall lean man on his late years, who walked with the aid of walking stick. As he got into the helicopter he was handcuffed, blindfolded and presented signs of bruises sustained from the first encounters with the army. Guest number two was a nine year old lying on the stretcher, bleeding from the bullet wounds in both legs. Dehydrated, disoriented as the effect of adrenalin and shock, the first line of defense and denial started wearing down. The effect of the painkiller that was administered immediately, followed by the drip and chaos around the scene did not help much. “pain was inevitable,” guest number one started crying, struggling and calling out, “memme wa nke”. Guest number one, he too was struggling to cope with pain sustained from the few hours that they waited for the helicopter. The extraction of the preliminary information and general mishandling has left him with excruciating pain and to be blindfolded, hands and feet tight and thrown into the belly of the helicopter was just as painful. The two helicopters crossed the border and minutes later inside the Namibian territory they descended, going further down and down, eventually landing few meters from the water tower overlooking a building that was a hospital facility where medics, nurses and doctors waited for the nine year old boy near the operating table in a none operating room. Somewhere a distance from the hospital, were a building with a room with no window, two men waited patiently for the elderly man. They prepared their working equipment and discussed the methods of obtaining information that they would use in this case. Meanwhile back at the small town near the border of Angola and South West Africa here with called Namibia, the SADF soldiers withdrew leaving lifeless bodies lying in the fields (to this day it is not known the number of victims who were killed in this raid), they left looted buildings and planted anti-personnel mines and withdrew. As the staccato gunshots ceased and sound of the helicopters faded into the hot blue sky, silence befell upon the town of Chiede. One by one the survivor started coming out, ghost like figure, here and there a cry, a calling of name would erupt and another survivor would respond. One voice, two voices, three voices, more voices, steadily the community gathered the strength and courage. Here and there gathering the lifeless bodies that were left on the fields for the vultures to take care. The cloud swept across the sky, collecting the soul of those who have departed as the survivors swept across the mahangu fields collecting the bodies of their loved ones.