On one of my trips to Angola, I visited Cassinga, site of the contentious 1978 attack by the South African Defence Force, where the remains of a burnt-out Shippiki bus still stands as a stark reminder of Namibia’s journey to freedom.
A friend, Max Pavo, who was with us on the trip was one of the camp commanders at the time of the attack. He pointed out the skeleton of the bus and told us that it was a Shippiki bus that had been hijacked in northern Namibia and driven to Cassinga. Several years later, when I visited the Shippiki family in Oshakati, I heard the story of the company and the fascinating tale of how the bus ended up there.
It all started when Isaiah Shippiki worked for ‘Binnelandse Sake’ - Home Affairs - in Ondangwa. Every day he took a taxi to work, returning home to Oshakati in the evening. It occurred to him that he could start his own taxi service to cover his costs and bring in extra income at the same time. This he did in 1970. Whenever he drove in his old VW Kombi (‘Okombi’) to work and back, he gave rides to passengers and on Saturdays he offered transport to other areas. Sundays were reserved for church.
Isaiah had a good sense for business and paid attention when his passengers mentioned that there was a need for transport from Oranjemund and Lüderitz in southern Namibia to the North. He bought a Datsun Civilian minibus, obtained his Driehoek permit, which he attached to the windscreen, and started his long-distance transport service. It did so well and there was such a demand that he soon bought a bigger bus. Eventually he had half a dozen Shippiki buses offering transport along the route and from Oshakati to Ruacana.
Business was not easy during the war-torn years leading up to independence. The buses could only run during the day because of the curfew in the North. On one occasion in the 1980s a head-on collision with an army truck at Kalkrand resulted in thirteen fatalities, including the driver. On another occasion the South African security forces opened fire on the Datsun Civilian during curfew when they noticed movement around the vehicle. This turned out to be passengers that were sleeping on board before their early morning bus ride. Luckily, no-one was injured.
What happened on 22 April 1978 was far more serious. One of the buses en route to Ruacana was stopped by PLAN (People’s Liberation Army of Namibia, the military wing of SWAPO) fighters with 72 passengers on board. A pregnant woman, her child, and an elderly man were told to get off the bus. The driver was ordered to the back of the bus and a PLAN fighter took the wheel and negotiated the back roads to the border until the bus bogged down in sand and the bus driver was asked to return to his post. It was only two days later, on the Sunday, that those back home learned from a businessman in Outapi that the bus had been hijacked and had been driven with its passengers to the Cassinga camp in southern Angola.
A former iron-mining town with a strong SWAPO (South West Africa People’s Organisation) presence, Cassinga would be the site of a raid by the South African army twelve days later when more than six hundred people lost their lives, many of them civilians. An eye-witness remembers people taking shelter in the bus and running out in panic during the attack.
By the time I came to see the burnt-out skeleton of the bus forty years later, the grisly event was thankfully long past and Namibia had already been an independent country for almost three decades. It was only in 2019 when I visited Hendrina Shippiki, Isaiah’s wife, and their son in Oshakati that I heard the full story and saw the family photographs which they kindly shared with us. Hendrina told me how Isaiah had passed on in 2002 and their son had taken over the transport company. It now focuses on transport for local schools and tour groups. It remains a small family business in the North with an interesting name and an intriguing history.
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(If any readers were Shippiki passengers during the 70s, or know of anyone who was, please share your stories with us. We would love to hear from you)