THE burial of Andimba Toivo ya Toivo will take place at Heroes Acre on Saturday, 24 June.
Ya Toivo died last Friday at his home in Windhoek after returning from a business trip to Walvis Bay, where he had gone with long-time friend and fellow former Robben Island prisoner Helao Shityuwete.
President Hage Geingob informed mourners at the Ya Toivo family home on Sunday evening that Ya Toivo had been accorded national hero status.
Family spokesperson Helmut Angula yesterday said Ya Toivo’s body would be flown to Ondangwa for a memorial service at the Andimba Toivo ya Toivo Senior Secondary School there on Friday, and will return to Windhoek on Saturday.
He also said there would be a new programme for next week which will culminate in the memorial service in Windhoek on 23 June, and the burial on the 24th.
Angula said after getting home on Friday, Ya Toivo told his drivers that he was not feeling very well, whereupon the guards were asked to help him remove some of his clothes as he was feeling hot.
“He was a healthy man. When his nephew found him, he was paralysed and could not move, so he (the nephew) called the doctors for advice, while he tried to resuscitate him. The paramedics came and tried for one hour and a half, but nothing [happened],” said Angula.
Tributes have been pouring in since Saturday from the RDP, the African National Congress, the South African Communist Party, and the Economic Freedom Fighters.
Others who paid tribute were South African president Jacob Zuma, the Ahmed Kathrada Foundation and the Nelson Mandela Foundation.
Ya Toivo was a highly respected Namibian liberation icon and southern African freedom fighter, who has been described as strong-willed and determined, as well as being conscientious and ethical.
He was arrested by apartheid South African authorities with 36 others in 1966, and stood trial for terrorism in the Pretoria Supreme Court in 1967. He was then sentenced to 20 years imprisonment on 9 February 1968 under the Terrorism Act of 1967.
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