admin
Mandela was hospitalised on June 8 with the South African presidency describing his condition as critical.
“Affidavits will be provided at the hearing of this application from his (Mandela’s) treating physicians that he is assisted in breathing by a life support machine,” the document from Makaziwe Mandela and others said.
“The anticipation of his impending death is based on real and substantial grounds.”
The papers were filed last Friday, but only made available in court yesterday.
Madiba’s eldest grandson, and chief of Mvezo, Mandla Mandela, moved the remains of Mandela’s three children from Qunu to Mvezo in 2011, without the consent of his relatives.
The High Court in Mthatha ruled against Mandla Mandela yesterday, after he tried to have a court order compelling him to return the remains to Qunu overturned.
In his ruling on the graves of the former president’s three children, Mthatha High Court judge Lusindiso Pakade ordered the sheriff of the court to exhume the graves at Mandla Mandela’s property in Mvezo at 15:00 and move them to the family farm in Qunu for reburial.
Mandla Mandela has since launched a second application to rescind this court order.
The graves are those of Mandela’s eldest son and Mandla Mandela’s father Makgatho Mandela, who died in 2005; Mandela’s first daughter Makaziwe Mandela, who died as an infant in 1948; and Mandela’s second son Madiba Thembekile, who died in a car accident in 1969.
In a related development, the gates to Mandla Mandela’s Mvezo property were forced open as undertakers and police arrived yesterday, to exhume the bodies of former president Nelson Mandela’s three children.
Mandela had earlier been ordered by the Eastern Cape High Court in Mthatha to return the bodies he had moved from Qunu.
eNCA television reported that the gates have been forced open by the sheriff of the court. Three hearses were said to have entered the property.
The original court order was made last week.
EWN’s Mandy Wiener tweeted: “Cringing watching visuals of the sheriff cracking open the gates to Mandla Mandela’s property with a pick. The shame of a nation.” — Sapa/News24.
Online Reporter