According to Times Live, after Mandla Mandela failed to meet the court ordered deadline to exhume the remains by 3pm on Wednesday, the sheriff of the court ordered that the gate of Mandla’s homestead be broken open and that the bodies be located.
The remains of Nelson Mandela’s children Thembekile, Makgatho (Mandla’s father) and baby Makaziwe will undergo DNA testing at the Walter Sisulu University in Mthatha on Thursday before being returned to Qunu, Times Live reported.
According to Eyewitness News, the judge in the Eastern Cape High Court, who ruled against Mandla Mandela, described Mandla’s relocation of the remains to be “scandalous” and “vicious”.
Seventeen members of the Mandela family, including Nelson Mandela’s daughter Makaziwe, who shares a name with her deceased sibling, and his wife Graça Machel turned to the court when Mandla refused to allow the relocation of the remains that he moved from Qunu to Mvezo in 2011.
Times Live reported that court documents provided by the family revealed a little more about the ailing statesman’s health. The document stated that: “Affidavits will be provided at the hearing of this application from his [Nelson Mandela’s] treating physicians that he is assisted in breathing by a life-support machine.”
The family also said that the “anticipation of his impending death is based on real and substantial grounds,” according to Times Live.
