LIVE BY DESIGN | Lusikisiki: The survivors – what happens next?

Around 02:00 on 28 September in the village of Nyathi, Ngobozana, in Lusikisiki, Eastern Cape, relatives assembled in two houses. The family members present, mainly women, settled late into their bedrooms after a long evening of preparing food and drink. In the morning, they would travel to another village, taking everything with them, to participate in a cleansing ceremony to mark the anniversary of deceased family members, a mother and daughter, who had been murdered a year earlier.

That ceremony did not take place.

That night, 18 more people were murdered and five injured when three assailants used automatic rifles and pistols to undertake a killing spree. Fifteen of the 18 victims were women. There was no return fire; the families were not armed. The attack was out of the blue – unexpected. The intention was to kill, not maim; the fatal wounds were mostly head wounds. Why? The reason has been difficult to ascertain. News reporters have found it challenging to get a straightforward story. Is this a family feud? Were these revenge killings?

Police detained the first suspect on 3 October, and three more were taken in for questioning on 6 October. Remaining relatives of the Sinqina clan declined a government offer of a mass funeral but accepted a memorial service on Sunday, 6 October. The family spokesperson, Monwabisi Sinqina, explained that families must hold private funerals in different burial sites and adhere to traditional rituals.

More than 30 relatives arrived to attend the October memorial service. Those few who emerged are still living after the shooting spree. David King, the uncle of the deceased Ruth King, who was to turn 21 later this year, spoke with the media. His sister-in-law, mother to Ruth, was gunned down in the adjoining bedroom. She could hear her daughter screaming for her: “Mummy, Mummy”.

He told Newzroom Afrika reporters: “We are not okay. The mother is even worse. I’m sleeping over at my brother’s place. I hear her crying. I hear her praying. It’s like she’s talking to God. She’s got questions”.

He confirmed that social workers had come to conduct counselling sessions. By the end of this weekend, two weeks after the shooting, the funerals will have taken place. Eleven in one burial site, four in another, and one in yet another.

Their bodies were collected from the mortuary. The customary practice of the deceased spending their last night at home before being taken to the burial site was not followed. It is believed that when a person has died in such a violent manner, to have their remains in the house overnight before the ceremony will bring more misfortune in the future. Fear and trauma prevail.

The burials will be the final farewell, but what happens next? The survivors are likely to suffer post-traumatic stress disorder (PSTD), anxiety and depression. If they do not receive support, they may suffer for years to come.

I write this as the daughter of a mother who was 11 years old when the Second World War broke out and 21 when she finally left a refugee camp. She jumped at certain noises. When I was a teenager, someone gave me a small typewriter. As I sat in my bedroom typing our French verb declensions that I wanted to memorise, my mother burst through my bedroom door, grabbed the typewriter, and threw it against the wall with all the force she could muster. She wanted to break it. Tears streamed down her face. She was screaming. Later, she explained that the rat-tat-tat-tat sound of the typewriter reminded her of wartime, of hearing machine gun fire, and it was a trigger that drove her crazy. Doctors, in those days, did not deeply understand PSTD. Hers was not diagnosed and treated.

In the Lusikisiki community, people’s grief is witnessed, an essential component of healing. Substantial material contributions by the Premier’s office and funeral companies have eased the financial burden.

What will be more difficult in the longer term is psycho-social support. Talk therapy could support survivors. Health professionals have documented the positive experience of patient support groups in war-torn African countries. But not everyone finds it easy to talk. Art therapy could be an alternative.

In 1985, I saw children in a primary school in Mozambique painting the day after the army ammunition exploded in Malhazine, 10 kilometres from Maputo’s city centre. The children had seen flaming tracer bullets against the night sky, and flames shot up hundreds of feet. Fifty people died, and hundreds were injured. Children chose black as their primary paint colour.

Years later, when my husband was dying of cancer, my doctor felt I was not giving voice to my feelings, and she sent me to an art therapist. That worked. It loosened my tongue, and I found my words.

Research shows that stress, tension, and trauma are embodied physically, not only psychologically. Some techniques used by trained practitioners involve tapping on specific points of your body while focusing on the emotion or issue that you want to release. It goes by different names but is often called the Emotional Freedom Technique. If you are wary of your body being tapped, you might be pleased to know that you remain fully dressed in the process, and the focus is on your face and hands. There is yet another technique, Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR).

Reiki therapy is similarly a hands-off therapy wherein hands are placed in proximity to your head or body, connecting to energy flows and using their hands to realign that energy for balance and healing. I guess I was sceptical until I received a Reiki voucher as a gift after my husband died. I lay on my tummy, and my body responded to the hands passing above my back – which never touched me. Tears flowed freely. The emotional release felt powerful.

Lusikisiki, a populated rural area in the Eastern Cape, may not have the cultural disposition towards these therapies nor the access you would find in our cities.

It will be incumbent on the provincial health department to think carefully about how to support Lusikisiki in the coming months.

If psychological healing does not take place, the damage suffered by the community will continue into the next generation. There is a societal responsibility to assist. Dr Lucy Hone, grief specialist, writes: “Do not lose what you have to what you have lost.”