STORY: Terry February promised his dying mother that he would find his brother’s grave and bring him home to South Africa.
After decades of searching, this is the moment – at a graveyard in Zimbabwe’s Bulawayo – that he fulfilled that vow.
“It’s a special moment, it’s exciting for me particularly, to finally say, yes, we will take him home.”
Basil February was an anti-apartheid fighter.
The medical student turned activist had fled South Africa to join uMkhonto weSizwe, the armed wing of the African National Congress.
He was killed in 1967 while in exile in Zimbabwe, then called Rhodesia.
He had been trying to return to South Africa for operations.
Ever since, Terry has been searching for his brother’s burial site to no avail.
“And it was, I think, about two years ago, with the cooperation of the Zimbabwean government that our structures in South Africa were notified that they think they have found Basil’s remains, his gravesite.”
The exhumation is a part of a cooperative project between South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia to repatriate the remains of anti-apartheid heroes who died in exile.
Madeleine Fullard is head of the Missing Persons Task Team of the South African National Prosecuting Agency.
“We’ve mainly worked inside South Africa to date, but this is now the launch of a process of tracing those who died or disappeared outside the borders of South Africa, and to bring them home for their families where possible.”
Terry says his can now give his brother the resting place he deserves, alongside his mother and father.
“He was that guy, who cared about the people, the community, the population around him.”
Basil was, he says, someone who would give the clothes off his back to someone in need.
“I would like Basil to be remembered for that kind, loving, caring person that he was.”
Source Agencies
