Driller's family struggles to survive

"For three days, no one answered his cellphone. We called hospitals, police stations, [but] we never thought of calling the mortuary."

These were the words Nolufefe Noki uttered this week as she recollected her family's desperate search for her brother, Mgcineni - better known as the Man in the Green Blanket.

On Thursday August 16 2012, Nolufefe and her relatives sat huddled around the battery-powered portable radio on the kitchen table, listening to news bulletins about the Marikana massacre.

In between commercials and the programme lineup, they each exhausted their airtime, desperate to find the rock driller who was a breadwinner for his immediate and his extended family.

Mgcineni built and maintained the three rondavels on his family's homestead in Thwalikhulu, a remote Eastern Cape village that is still without electricity and running water.

The 32-year-old miner had also paid unemployed neighbours to level a portion of his property where he planned to build a three-bedroom house.

His cattle, which occupied a flimsy wooden kraal at the bottom of the sloped yard, were his greatest pride, each bought with his meagre earnings.

Seated on a wooden chair in one of the unsteady rondavels badly damaged by recent rains, Nolufefe, 37, said Mgcineni would deposit R2500 a month for the family to buy groceries and maintain the property.

"It was a lot of money since most of us are not working. We were dependent on him."

Nolufefe, who has struggled to find work for the past seven years, said the money supported at least five other relatives.

Mgcineni would also send money to his wife, Noluvuyo, who, until recently, lived and worked in Carletonville, west of Johannesburg, with their five children.

Nolufefe, who now temporarily heads the homestead, recently sold one of Mgcineni's six cows for R7000 to buy extra household supplies and refurbish a decrepit mud rondavel. It is now plastered with cement and boasts a new thatched roof.

"The way things are going, we may have to sell another [cow] soon," she said.

The last time Mgcineni deposited money was in July 2012, just days before 3000 miners at Marikana platinum mine in Nkaneng near Rustenburg went on a strike on August 10 that claimed the lives of 44 people.

Frantic neighbours, said Nolufefe, rushed screaming to tell her the news of the police opening fire on the striking miners. The workers had reportedly defied repeated orders to give up their weapons.

"After no one answered his phone, we feared that he was arrested or was lying in hospital badly injured," said Nolufefe.

Between that Thursday afternoon and Saturday evening, the family also called relatives and friends in Rustenburg and Carletonville to establish Mgcineni's whereabouts.

His bullet-riddled body, only marked with a number on a name tag, was eventually found in a government mortuary and identified by his co-workers.

"I can't explain how I felt, how we all felt, when we were told," said Nolufefe.

"We did not even know there was a strike and were surprised to learn my brother was one of the leaders.

"He was often a quiet person, who never fought with anyone... He loved his soccer."

Fondly known as "Mambushe" because of his soccer skills, Mgcineni was a steadfast Orlando Pirates supporter.

On the day of his funeral, a month later, in September, mourners were forbidden to see the body in the casket.

"Elder members of the family and those who had seen the body before it was brought home [to Thwalikhulu] said it had a lot of bullet wounds [and] that he had suffered a broken leg and deep gashes to his face," said Nolufefe.

Several weeks after the massacre, newspapers reported that a severely wounded Mgcineni was struck by a police Nyala before his motionless body, which had been lying in the sun for at least 90 minutes, was put in the police vehicle and taken away.

His green blanket was reportedly still draped around his neck and shoulders. The blanket had become Mgcineni's identifying feature during the strike.

He gained notoriety as a "negotiator" for the miners and tried to reason with officers that the workers were not a danger to anyone, even though they were armed with an assortment of weapons, including home-made swords, knives, pangas, and knobkerries.

Video footage, reportedly in police possession, shot before the massacre apparently shows Mgcineni negotiating with officers to get the mine's operators - Lonmin management - to give attention to their demands, including hiking their monthly wages to R12500.

Workers had also made it clear that they were not going to disperse until Lonmin's management came to the mountain to address them.

During his funeral, villagers described how gunshots echoed through the valley, a sign of a hero's sendoff.

Mgcineni, who left his rural homestead to work in the mines, initially settled in Carletonville. He moved to Nkaneng in 2004 and joined the workforce at Marikana platinum mine.

Within 18 months, he was promoted from general worker to winch operator. Later, he was promoted to rock drill operator.