Farmer’s wife is strangled while another worker is being tortured and murdered in South Africa
A farmer’s wife has been sexually assaulted and strangled, while another rural worker has been tortured and murdered in the latest attacks on white farmers in South Africa.
Divorcee Chantel Kershaw, 44, was ambushed by two armed black men on Wednesday while working her land in Delmas, east of Johannesburg.
Kershaw’s underwear was taken off and put in her mouth and she was strangled in her garage.
In a separate incident, 21-year-old farm manager Brendin Horner was brutally tortured on Friday and found covered in blood the next day and tied up at a post in Paul Roux, Free State province.
Divorcee Chantel Kershaw, 44, (left and right) was ambushed on Wednesday by two armed black men while working her land in Delmas east of Johannesburg.
In a separate incident, 21-year-old farm manager Brendin Horner (pictured) was brutally tortured on Friday and found covered in blood the next day and tied to a post in Paul Roux, Free State province.
The two horrific attacks were 180 miles apart in remote farmland
The two horrific attacks were 300 kilometers apart and carried out by brutal killers, where the country’s white farmers live in constant fear of rape and murder on their remote farms.
Kershaw was attacked while helping load a lawn mower onto a truck.
The men undressed her and kept her on the floor of the garage near her farm while strangling her.
Her distraught mother Greta Spiers, 65, was hit over the head with a gun and she, along with a maid, was stopped when the farm was ransacked.
The two men fled in the family’s white Chevrolet station wagon, but were chased by neighborhood watch farmers who forced the stolen vehicle off the road at high speed.
The neighborhood watch was alerted by Kershaw’s mother and captured the suspects who were handed over to the police.
A farmhand who was stripped and tied up by the robbers was later arrested after the cell phone numbers of the two suspects were found in his phone.
The three men appeared before Delmas Magistrates Court, charged with armed robbery, robbery and murder, and were denied bail and were taken into custody.
Police spokesman Brigadier Leonard Hiathi said: “Chantel asked an employee to help her load a lawn mower into a truck when she suddenly saw two armed men in her yard.
They told the employee to take off his clothes and tie him up, then they attacked the woman who screamed for help, strangled her, and then entered the house.
The victim’s mother was attacked with a firearm and the house was robbed.
There was a quick chase between the suspects and the neighborhood watch group, with the suspects overturning their vehicle and crawling out to escape.
“But they were caught and turned over to the police who opened a case or robbery and murder and found a firearm and ammunition and a blood-stained jacket.”
One of the suspects in Kershaw’s murder is taken away by the police
The two attackers fled Kershaw’s home in the family’s white Chevrolet station wagon, but were chased by neighborhood watch farmers who forced the stolen vehicle off the road in a high-speed chase.
In the separate incident, Horner was brutally tortured before being stabbed three times and then strangled to death after being hanged from a stake.
The gruesome attack took place on De Rots farm in Paul Roux in the Free State province, 180 miles from the earlier murder, and he is said to have endured a gruesome ordeal.
Police spokesman Brigadier Montansi Makheli said Brendin did not return home after he finished work and that his girlfriend Lenize Taljaard raised the alarm.
His body was found on Saturday at 6 am by his father Robbie and a colleague Jaco Kleingeld.
His blood-soaked body had been severed several times and a knife was found near the stake to which he was attached.
Two men have been arrested and charged with murder and are due to appear in court tomorrow.
Gilly Scheepers who owns the ranch where Horner was murdered told TimesLive: “He was so excited that day that he worked for us for a year, and on that special day he died. His family takes his death extremely hard. ‘
Agriculture strategist Dr. Jaco De Villiers has described the latest murder as part of a “war on food production” in the country, saying his murder was “slaughter.”
He told the paper, ‘How do you kill someone and hang them on a stake for everyone to see? This was a clear message to all farmers. Farm murders must stop now. ‘
Brendin Horner’s girlfriend, Lenize Taljaard, raised the alarm on Friday night after Horner failed to return home
Horner in a recent photo on social media
Dr. Jane Buys, Free State Agriculture security and risk analyst, told TimesLIVE: “The senseless murders cannot be tolerated with the brutality in which they are carried out.
It is not clear what the motive for this murder is. There cannot be any justification for killing someone who provides food security. Something has to be done to stop it ‘.
Pressure group Agri SA said a farm where a farmer is violently attacked will be abandoned on average for up to five years until someone takes over and production restarts.
They said this means dozens of workers and dependents lose their livelihoods.
AfriForum spokesman Marius Muller, speaking for the civil rights group protecting minority groups in South Africa, said the farmers need better police protection.
He said, “This is another dark day in South Africa’s history for farmers and small business people and the murder of these two farmers was totally unnecessary.
“These were both premeditated and gruesome attacks on innocent peasants who care for their workers and whose jobs could now be endangered by these murders.”
An average of 60 people are murdered in South Africa every day, but although the number of farmers killed an average of 75 a year, their deaths are horrific and cruel.
Their killers often use hot irons, power tools, and boiling water to torture their victims and rape the female members in the house before eventually killing their victims.
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