Zim miners to get paupers’ burial in SA

The North West health department in South Africa is awaiting documentation, including death certificates, for the bodies of 23 illegal miners recovered from Stilfontein mine.

Department spokesperson Tshegofatso Mothibedi said the bodies will be buried by the end of June once the documentation has been finalised.

“We have 23 [bodies] awaiting documentation [death certificates] from home affairs and they will then be buried.

“Our expectation is we will receive the documentation in the coming weeks and mass funerals will be carried out at month-end,” he said.

“Since the start of the verification and identification process we have successfully identified and handed 25 bodies to their loved ones, after they came forward and positively identified the deceased through a DNA match.”

They are from Zimbabwe, Lesotho and Mozambique.

Mothibedi said 30 unidentified bodies were buried this week as part of the 78 corpses discovered earlier this year at abandoned mine shafts in Stilfontein.

The burials have taken place in Kanana and Stilfontein in accordance with legal provisions that allow the burial of unidentified people once all efforts to identify them have been exhausted.

“We have at least 30 and more to conduct identification processes and beyond that the law empowers government to conduct mass funerals.”

Mothibedi also addressed public concern about the transparency of the process, saying the department has made efforts to involve communities and trace the identities of the deceased.

“We waited for more than four months with calls made for community members to come forward with information to help us identify the bodies. We have extracted DNA from the bodies and archived them in case someone comes forward later to make a claim,” he said.

“It is not true the department has kept burials secret. Burials of unidentified bodies happen all the time and are normally carried out without fanfare. There are no invitations to mass funerals.”

Authorities are appealing to anyone with missing family members to contact the health department or local authorities, as DNA profiles remain available for future identification. The Standard