GOVT TO BURY 22 IN PAUPERS FUNERAL

MBABANE – The government will bear the costs of burying 22 corpses who remain unclaimed at the Mbabane Government Hospital mortuary.

Ten of these corpses are foetuses, some of which were brought into the mortuary by police officers. The women who carried these foetuses were charged with abortion. The hospital is aware of names of only a few of the adult corpses while some are unknown. The paupers funeral will be conducted next Wednesday. According to our sources, some of them died while undergoing treatment at the hospital. The relatives of these people remain unknown as they arrived at the hospital to seek medical treatment on their own. Other bodies were brought in by the police, who left to continue with their investigation on their identities. The source said some of the bodies were brought in by neighbours who lived with the deceased on the same block of rented flats. The first adult corpse to arrive at the hospital is of a white adult male, who was brought in by the Mbabane police on April 11, 2014. His identity remains unknown. The first foetus was brought in on June 17, 2015 and it allegedly belongs to a woman of Mantabeni.

Relatives have been given until next week Wednesday to claim the bodies as the paupers funeral will be conducted by government on the day. A letter was written to the police service on June 29 this year by the hospital management, to enquire about the bodies but they never replied. Hospital Administrator Cebile Dlamini, who was in the company of a senior morgue attendant, Paul Dlamini confirmed that the hospital had tried by all means to find the families of the deceased. Cebile explained that the bodies were kept in the cold but they were decomposing as they had been kept at the morgue for years. She said they made an announcement on radio, calling upon relatives to come and claim the corpses in June, but there was no response. “The corpses are a health hazard to our employees and other people, who have come to collect their relatives’ bodies from the mortuary,” she said. She said they had a challenge of getting burial plots for the corpses as they had to pay E260 to the city council. She said they had also bought coffins which they would use to bury the people who will be given the paupers funeral.

Cebile said they would put two foetuses in each coffin. Paul said they also had to pay people to dig the graves of the deceased. Superintendent Khulani Mamba, the Chief Police Information and Communications Officer, acknowledged the letter from the hospital. “There are particular procedures which are followed in the police organisation that we are still going through. We will get in touch with the hospital concerning the corpses,” Mamba said.

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