Sad farewell to NMMU student

Hundreds  of mourners packed an Arcadia church and a tent outside for the funeral of NMMU student Jamie Baartzes, who died in a head-on collision in Port Elizabeth last week.

Baartzes’s father, Justin Uren, said the family had received a torrent of messages of support.

“As parents, we are tremendously proud of the way Jamie lived her life – and [this] is evidenced in the heartfelt response to her passing,” he said.

Baartzes’s uncle, Charles Witbooi, read out a moving eulogy at the service at the Holy Spirit Catholic Church on Saturday, with people who were unable to find a seat in the jam-packed church accommodated in a tent set up outside.

Others stood near the windows to listen to the service when the tent rapidly filled up.

Uren said: “He [Witbooi] was like a second father to Jamie.

”We have a broad family, on both sides, and a very big friendship group, [and] Jamie had a lot of her own friends.”

Baartzes, 19, who was studying to become a teacher, died at about 1am on Tuesday while medics were attending to her at the crash scene on the M4 freeway, just past the Walmer Boulevard turnoff.

A BMW travelling on the wrong side of the road, allegedly at high speed and driven by an unlicensed driver, smashed into her vehicle as she was returning home after studying and doing research on campus with a friend.

In his eulogy, Witbooi said: “Jamie taught us so much and gave us so much. We don’t know today how we will proceed. We pray the Lord will come with us and especially the family . . .

“If I close my eyes and try to picture the family without Jamie, I immediately open my eyes because I can’t.

“That is the greatness of our loss, that our minds can’t conceive this.

“We pray that the Lord will leave her legacy in our minds of who Jamie was. Everybody who Jamie got in touch with, she left a special feeling.”

Uren said yesterday it was a testament to his daughter’s character that so many people had attended the service.

“You always try to instill good values in your children and yesterday was a testimony to the fact that she had those values,” he said.

Uren said the family was grateful for the support they had received since Baartzes’s death.

The driver of the BMW, Amos Sinyanya, 28, of Motherwell, is out on R3 000 bail.

He is facing charges of driving without a driver’s licence, culpable homicide and driving under the influence of alcohol.

The two passengers in Sinyanya’s car, who were slightly injured, have since turned state witness.