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Farmer set alight

A Free State farmer is recovering in a Vereeniging clinic after being attacked and set alight outside his farm gate near Heilbron

Christo Janse van Rensburg, 36, sustained second and third degree burns when two men threw a petrol bomb through his open bakkie window as he arrived home around 10pm on Tuesday.

His wife Connie said that when her husband jumped out of his car and rolled on the ground, his assailants attacked him with a metal pipe and tried to force him back into the burning vehicle.

When this failed, they tried to stab him, then poured more petrol over him and set him alight.

Van Rensburg stripped and ran 200 metres to his farmhouse for help.

“My husband fought very hard. When I heard him screaming, I switched the lights on and the attackers must have taken fright, because they fled,” she said.

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