The gates to the homestead belonging to Nelson Mandela’s grandson Mandla in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province have been broken down by police.
It comes hours after a court ruled the remains of three of the ex-president’s children should be removed from there to a nearby family graveyard.
Mandla moved the remains in 2011, allegedly without the family’s consent, reports the BBC.
His 94-year-old grandfather remains critically ill in hospital suffering from a recurring lung infection.
Meanwhile, court papers filed last week reveal that Mr Mandela has been on a life support machine, South Africa’s Mail and Guardian newspaper reports.
“Nelson Mandela’s health is perilous. [An] affidavit will be provided from physicians that he is assisted in breathing by a life support machine,” the paper quotes the documents filed by Mandela’s family last Thursday as saying.
President Jacob Zuma said on Monday that Mandela’s condition remained critical but had stabilised, and he urged South Africans to plan for his 95th birthday on 18 July.
The former president has said he wants to be buried in the family graveyard in the village of Qunu, where he grew up and mostly lived after he retired.
Last Friday, 16 members of the Mandela family were granted an interim order for the remains to be exhumed and moved from Mandla Mandela’s homestead in the village of Mvezo, the former president’s birthplace, to nearby Qunu, 22km (14 miles) away.
But Mandla Mandela, who was appointed as chief of Mvezo by his grandfather, went to court to challenge it.
The Mthatha High Court confirmed its initial decision and said the exhumations should take place at 15:00 local time (13:00 GMT) on Wednesday.
Mandela’s eldest grandson has appealed against the decision, but the police arrived at his property on Wednesday afternoon accompanied by Mandela’s daughter Makiziwe, the BBC’s Gringo Wotshela in Mvezo reports.
The sheriff of the court broke down the gate with an axe and police officers are searching for the graves, he says.
Three hearses have been spotted in the area, South Africa’s Eyewitness News reports.
The remains are those of Makgatho Mandela, Mandla’s father who died from Aids-related diseases in 2005, and Makgatho’s siblings, Thembekile, who was killed in a car accident in 1969, and Makaziwe, who died when she was nine months old.
