“We just listened to how we were kept safe, it’s like angels from heaven standing around us,” said Erna Rademan, 60, who, along with her husband, Pieter, 61, were the targets of a farm attack outside on Sunday Vredefort was.
Herman van Wyk, chairman of the Vredefort Dome Community Policing Forum (CPF), said the CPF had received information a week earlier that a gang was planning to attack and rob the couple at their farm, Goedgedacht.
Van Wyk says the Rademans, police and local farmers were warned in advance to be vigilant.
They had ugly plans, says Van Wyk.
Members of the CPF noticed a suspicious red Volkswagen Polo and a white Isuzu pickup truck with GP number plates in the area on Sunday afternoon.
The CPF activated its action plan, the couple was informed of the imminent danger and the police’s assistance was called.
A roadblock was set up at the Rademans’ farm entrance and the suspected attackers were waiting here.
The two vehicles arrived just before 9pm.
The gang saw the roadblock and tried to turn around and drive away.
Van Wyk says the CPF members were prepared for this and forced the vehicles to a standstill.
Police arrested six suspects, three firearms were seized and the two vehicles were also seized.
Van Wyk suspects there may have been more firearms thrown away.
Rademan says it’s amazing to know that others leave their wives and children at home to ensure you’re safe.
“They are men with marrow in their pipes, they are men of caliber, they are now king’s children.”
“Some of the young farmers are children who were at school with me,” says Rademan, a former teacher and former principal of the Chris van Niekerkskool in Vredefort.
It is also very upsetting to experience such a thing, but we were not once in danger, she says.
“You believe you are living in such a way that others will not want to hurt you. Of course, there are also questions about those close to your loyalty, because there must be a reason why these people came from across the river to attack us, ”she says.
Rademan is well known in music circles and she and Pieter run a purified water business.
The area is considered one of the most dangerous agricultural areas in the country and farm attacks and murders come regularly here. In 2018 Dirk Steenkamp (71) and in 2019 Theunis Bosch (73) was killed in the area on farms.
In 2015, Hansie Raath, 54, and two sons, Petrus Mohlamme, 11, and Katleho Mosolodi, 15, were killed outside the town.
Lt. Gen. Baile Motswenyane, Free State Police Commissioner, confirmed the incident and thanked the farmers for the role they played in helping the police.
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