‘Our lives will never be the same’ – Gruesome pig farm murders shatter families and Limpopo community

The Makgato family home, from where Maria Makgato left to forage for expired yoghurt and never returned. (Photo: Lerato Mutsila)

By Lerato Mutsila

6 Nov 2024

The recent pig farm murders have shed light on a growing trend of violence between farm owners, farm workers and the surrounding community, which has led the South African Human Rights Commission to question what needs to be done.

In August 2024, South Africans woke up to the gruesome news that Maria Makgato and Kudzai Ndlovu had been brutally murdered, allegedly by pig farmer Zachariah Olivier and employees Adriaan De Wet and William Musoro on Olivier’s farm in Sebayeng just outside Polokwane, Limpopo.

Makgato (47) and Ndlovu (34) were not only shot several times, but Olivier and his co-accused allegedly fed their bodies to pigs in a bid to conceal the evidence.

Beyond the shocking headlines and gruesome details is the story of a community torn apart by the unfathomable crime and families devastated by the senseless murders.

pig farm murders limpopo The Makgato family home, from where Maria Makgato left to forage for expired yoghurt and never returned. (Photo: Lerato Mutsila)

When Daily Maverick travelled to the farm where the murders took place, we were greeted by a local woman who upon hearing why we were there, said, “Please, this thing is painful. What that man did was evil. No human being deserves to die like that.”

When asked if the farmer had shown any sort of violence towards the community before, the woman said that while he had complained about people from the surrounding villages trespassing on his property, she never believed that he would murder people because of it.

The woman was tending a small game meat shop which lay adjacent to the pigsty where Makgato and Ndlovu were foraging for yoghurt that was either expired or nearing its expiry date. This is where the two women’s bodies were found, riddled with bullets, badly decomposing and partially mauled by the pigs.

Olivier, and his co-accused de Wet and Musora, appeared in the Polokwane Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday, 6 November. De Wet and Musora decided to drop their bail application, but Olivier will proceed. The farmer will appear in court for his bail application on 22 November.

‘Our lives will never be the same’

The lives of 22-year-old Ranti Makgato and his three siblings have been forever altered by their mother’s tragic death.

When Daily Maverick visited him at his family home in Sebayeng, he told the publication how he had been among the search party who found the woman’s decomposing body.

As he retold the story of how he searched for his mother, the trauma of the ordeal was visible on Ranti’s face. He said that his mother told them that she was going to the farm to forage for yoghurt and left like it was any other evening. When she did not return, the worry started setting in.

“When Ma didn’t come home we didn’t know what to do, we didn’t know where to start looking for help. On Monday, I decided to go and open a case with the police. The next day the police came and said let’s go look for her at the place you said she was at. That’s where we found the bodies, with the pigs, some of the body parts were even missing,” an emotional Ranti said.

The senseless murder has not only taken a severe psychological toll on Ranti and his younger brothers, but a financial one as well. Ranti described how they depended on the mother for most things.

“It’s painful. Our lives will never be the same. I had to quit my job as a truck driver to come home and help take care of my siblings,” Ranti said.

Ranti said though he was happy that Olivier and his co-accused were arrested, no amount of justice would bring his mother back. Even worse for him was the lack of acknowledgement from Olivier’s family.

“No one from that family has contacted us, even just to say sorry. I feel like they don’t care, that they killed my mother, that my brothers will have to grow up knowing that she was killed in that way,” Ranti said.

His one wish is that none of the accused are offered bail.

Mabutho Ncube, the husband of Kudzai, was also shot during the attack but escaped and survived the ordeal. After initially agreeing to an interview with Daily Maverick, he recanted, stating that he was still in pain from losing his wife and was back in his native country of Zimbabwe, taking care of their children.

Community can’t make sense of the violence

On all counts, several people from the surrounding community said that Olivier never showed any malice towards them and that people had for years been going to the pigsty to forage for produce.

Most people in the community were reluctant to speak about the pig farm murders, saying only that they understood that Makgato and Ndlovu should not have trespassed on Olivier’s property, but that the farmer and his employees’ reaction had been beyond heinous. They all acknowledged that taking what did not belong to them was a crime, but that the women should not have paid with their lives.

While many in the community said that there had never been any prior incidents of violence from Olivier, an elderly man from Sebayeng, who asked only to be referred to as Mokwena, said that he had had several run-ins with the farmer.

“There was this one time I was trying to sell cabbages on the side of the road just outside his farm. He (Olivier) came to me and shouted at me, saying I can’t sell on his property. I didn’t understand because it was on the side of the road and he didn’t own that land,” Mokwena said in his native Sepedi.

Mokwena said that the other farmers around his village were usually willing to work with the surrounding communities, but Olivier often threatened the locals for trespassing on his property.

“I don’t know what made him do something that bad, this time,” Mokwena said.

‘Prevalent issue’

While the murders on the farm shocked the community, the killings were not an isolated incident of violence. The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) in Limpopo said violence in farming communities in the province was prevalent.

SAHRC provincial manager Victor Mavhidula told Daily Maverick the commission had been inundated with complaints of murder and assaults involving farm owners and workers or the surrounding community, an issue that was too big for the SAHRC to address on its own.

Mavhidula highlighted some of the cases that had stuck out for him over the years, the most recent being an assault that took place in Marble Hall, Groberlersdal where two women were injured during a 2022 protest over the implementation of a minimum wage. Farmworker Farncina Maluleke was hit in the eye by a rubber bullet while Portia Mokgabudi was run over by a bakkie allegedly driven by one of the farmers.

In another case, a farmworker was killed after being mistaken for a warthog in Mookgopong, Polokwane, in 2017. In 2006, a farmworker was shot after allegedly being mistaken for a baboon in Musina, Limpopo. In 2005, Mark Scott-Crossley was found guilty of tying up Nelson Chisale and feeding him to lions in Phalaborwa, Limpopo.

“We do have many cases of abuse. We have a case where a farmworker was driving with a farm owner [who he] was angry with. [The farm owner] saw baboons on the property and proceeded to shoot one of them.

“When the baboon was screaming, dying, he asked the farm worker to fetch that baboon and put it in the back of the bakkie. He said to [him], ‘This is what I will do to you. Can you see what I have done to your brother?’ ” Mavhidula recounted.

He said traumatised farm workers brought that case to the SAHRC, but this was just a drop in the ocean among the cases brought to the commission.

“There are many cases, and they warrant us to take matters to court, but there are no changes, people are still behaving the same way. This is not something we can leave to the politicians, civil society or the government. We need to join hands and get to the root of this problem,” Mavhidula said

“This is a very complicated area because a lot of the cases that happen in Limpopo happen without any witnesses and don’t get reported. But we are doing our best to follow up on these cases.”

He said the issue of social cohesion was a challenge.

“We have no scientific proof for this, but our observations tell us that there is a certain anxiety between farmworkers, farm owners and the labour tenants. The relationship is tainted and has deteriorated for years. There is no trust and an issue of land that is made worse by politicians,” Mavhidula said, adding that the tension needed to be condemned by the greater community.

Mavhidula said that the SAHRC in Limpopo would hold an imbizo towards the end of November, in which sectors of the government, civil society, the police, farm owners and the surrounding community would be invited to participate and try to find a solution to the problem.

“[After] 1994, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission did its part, but we could not deal with the psychosocial issues that were not addressed,” Mavhidula said. DM

This is Part Three of a three-part series of farm violence stories, you can read Part One here and Part Two here.

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South Africa

‘Our lives will never be the same’

Community can’t make sense of the violence

‘Prevalent issue’