Modise Church members held hostage
Congregants at International Pentecostal Holiness Church also known as Modise Church, were held hostage on Saturday in Zuurbekom in the west of Johannesburg.
There were believed to be close to 200 hostages at the International Pentecostal Holiness Church (IPHC). Several people were injured and taken to hospital.
The hostage situation started at one in the morning. The attackers were members of a splinter group of the church. The situation is a result of a leadership dispute at the church.
There was an exchange of gunfire between the attackers and International Pentecostal Holiness Church security. Police.
The hostages were freed. Forty people, including members of various security forces, were arrested on Saturday following a shooting and hostage drama that left five people dead.
Over 34 firearms, including five rifles, 16 shotguns and 13 pistols have also been seized.
After the church’s leader Glayton Modise died last year there was a legal dispute over his succession. There had also been violent clashes between different factions within the church, leading to deaths in some instances.
There were three splinter groups led by Michael Sandlana and Tshepiso and Leonard, the two sons of the church’s late leader Clayton Modise.
Michael Sandlana wholeads from Jerusalema Branch, two of Glayton Modise’s sons, Tshepiso Modise who is leading from the Springs Branch and Leonard Modise, who is occupying the headquarters of the IPHC, Silo, in Zuurbekom whose members were held hostage today.
Michael Sandlana is believed to be Modise’s love child and at one time was requested to avail himself for a medical test. According to the letter seen by Sunday World and dated November 27 2018, the executors said this was because they learnt that he had told one of the church’s branches that he was the son of the late clergyman.
Modise, who inherited the church from his late father and founder Frederick in 1998, died in 2016 after suffering an undisclosed illness.