Armed raiders forced my screaming son, 6, into an OVEN & threatened to cook him alive – I feared all our kids would die

A FAMILY watched in terror as a gang of brutal attackers tried to force their six-year-old son into an OVEN and threatened to cook him alive.

The distraught schoolboy was at the hands of seven heavily armed men who stormed the family farm in Mpumulanga Province, South Africa.

It was just one of a string of inhumane attacks on farmers which included an old lady being tortured with a blowtorch whilst held down and her hands and feet scorched recently.

In the latest attack, a gang manhandled the screaming youngster into the oven saying they would roast him as they thought the family were hiding cash from them.

Cattle farmer Niel Bierman, 47, wife Sonja, 43, and sons Daniel, 13, Jacobus, 10, and Gideon, 6, were ambushed on the farm which they had owned for the past 15 years.

The family run a guesthouse on their land and on Saturday two men and a woman arrived at the door.

Mother-of-three Sonja said: “There was nothing funny about that as people often peek in and ask about the rooms but then left and then there was suddenly seven armed men.

“The woman and two men who were with her had been joined by 5 others and there was no time to react as they were armed with a shotgun and 5 pistols and tied Niel up.

“They left my husband in the kitchen and took me to where the safes were kept and there was nothing I could do but pray out loud to the Lord asking him to protect us” she said.

They took her terrified sons Daniel, Jacobus and Gideon with them then aimed their weapons at all four of them and threatened to open fire unless they opened the strongboxes.

Inside was a 7.65mm Browning pistol and a Browning rifle and a pellet gun but no money or valuables and the gang became enraged and believed there was another hidden safe.

Sonja said: “I told them repeatedly that we do not keep money in the house but they did not believe me and as I tried to calm the children I heard a shot fired from inside the house.

“I did not know if my husband was alive or dead and then they grabbed my youngest Gideon and took us off the kitchen where I found out that my husband had not been shot.

“Niel was helpless and had to watch in fear as they opened the over door and held Gideon and tried to push him into the oven but he bravely fought back and wrestled them.

“They finally gave up but still wanted money and I gave them my savings can and R200 (£10) in my wallet and my eldest son gave them his wallet with a few rands inside”.

By chance a worker wandered up the farm to get some feed for the chickens and saw what was happening and ran off to raise the alarm panicking the gang into making a getaway.

They took Niel’s bank cards and PIN codes and several mobile phones and the guns and the keys to their Isuzi pick-up truck which they stole and tied up the rest of the family.

Sonja said: “Once we were tied I did not know what would happen next. Were we in a queue to be executed?I just prayed to the Lord my children would not see me shot dead”.

The gang are still on the run and the family are receiving counselling for their trauma.

Police spokesperson Captain Kay Makhubla confirmed the farm in Leeufontein had been ransacked various times by armed gangs.