KEY POINTS:
"I had never seen my father cry - until then."
Seventeen-year-old Samantha Richter, one of Zimbabwe's most promising swimmers who is now aiming to swim for New Zealand at the London Olympics in 2012, had just watched her family board a plane in Johannesburg.
Forced off their
farm in Harare at gunpoint, the Richter family were heading to New Zealand to start a new life.
Samantha, who was based at the Pretoria High Performance Centre, was to join her mother and father, Sharon and Bruce, and younger sisters Nicky and Kimberley in three weeks' time.
But at that moment, her heart was breaking for her father. A man who had spent the past 18 years building his farm into a multimillion-dollar business.
"He would have stayed if he didn't have us kids," Samantha said. "All he wants is for us to be safe."
Samantha has been competing in this week's World Championship trials in Auckland, where she won the 50m butterfly.
It was May 31 last year when the Richter's farm was taken over by veterans of the war for independence under President Robert Mugabe's sanctioned land grab of white-owned properties. Samantha remembers because it was her father's 44th birthday. She had tried calling but had failed to get through.
A day later, she received a call from her distraught mother who whispered down the line that their farm was gone.
When 75 armed veterans had stormed on to the Richter property, Bruce and Sharon and their youngest daughter, Kimberly, were at home. Nicky was at boarding school and Samantha was in Pretoria.
Locked in overnight, the Richters watched as the veterans set fire to their gardens, then killed a cow and smeared its blood across the windows.
"They were playing drums and screaming and singing," Samantha said. "[The family] had to pack up everything in a few hours. They left with just a few suitcases."
The Richters had already seen farms around them taken.
"Since it started about seven years ago, our farm had been fine," Samantha said.
"Then they started telling us to leave. A couple of squatters moved on to the farm, taking land for themselves. Which was fine, my dad let them.
"Then they decided they wanted us off, so they came and just took it."
About 200 labourers had worked on the farm.
After the eviction, her family rented a house on a small ostrich farm in the same town but were soon chased out by police and the veterans.
They hid in a small house in the mountains about two hours out of Harare for a year, waiting for their New Zealand application to be approved.
"They would go back to the old town and see friends but they couldn't really speak to them because they were scared of something bad happening to them because they were in contact with my dad," she said, tears welling up in her eyes.
Seven weeks ago, the Richters arrived in Auckland, followed by Samantha, and are living with grandparents in Takanini.
Samantha, a freestyler and butterflier, has been training in Howick but will join the North Shore Club next year.
