Monday 21 March 2022:- The children who were kidnapped by Mswati’s security forces yesterday, Sunday 20 March, at Lubulini community, east of Swaziland, are now back with their relatives.

When the soldiers kidnaped the children, the three-year-old cried hysterically and was rescued by neighbours. The soldiers then took the five-year-old boy together with a 23-year-old and another relative of Comrade Ayanda Ndwande, an organiser of the Communist Party of Swaziland.

They were returned late last night. They are currently with relatives. Comrade Ayanda, who left after the skirmish, is still hiding from the killer forces.

The army claimed that they had to take the five-year-old to help them identify his father, Comrade Ayanda, in the sports ground where the CPS was launching its community games.

The idea was that the five-year-old would run to his father once he saw him and the soldiers would thereby identify him. They wanted to use the children in their mission to arrest our comrade.

The 23-year-old and relative were taken separately in order to help the military identify the comrades from other regions who may have used Comrade Ayanda's home as an assembly point.

Comrade Ayanda's home remains under surveillance. As the CPS, we continue to monitor the situation.

Lubuluni community, through the leadership of Comrade Ayanda, is the first community in the country to embrace the CPS programme of establishing Community Councils. It is through our security community council that our comrades received community support to deny the security joint-operations staged in the area from crushing our mobilisation campaign for democracy now.

CPS PRESS SERVICES