CHILDREN WANT DAD WHO DISAPPEARED 16YRS AGO DECLARED DEAD

MBABANE - Children of a teacher, who disappeared 16 years ago, have filed an application to have him presumed to have died.

Bongani Ntandoyenkhosi Gumedze left his home at Mpolonjeni for work at Ndwandwe High School, where he was an English and History teacher, on April 1, 2007. At the time of vanishing, he was 41 years old. His three children, Landiwe, Lindani and Ziyanda, have since approached the High Court, where they are seeking an order declaring or presuming him to have died. They further entreated the court to issue an order directing the Ministry of Home Affairs, to forthwith issue a death certificate of their father. In her affidavit, Landiwe brought it to the attention of the court that it had been 16 years since their father disappeared. She narrated to the court that their father was married to their mother, Philisiwe Kunene, and they established a home at Mpolonjeni in Mbabane. The deponent (Landiwe) went on to recount events leading to the disappearance of their father.

Suffering

“On April 1, 2007, our father left our Mpolonjeni home for work at Ndwandwe High School in Mankayane, where he was a teacher. From that day to this very day, my sisters, my mother and I, have never set our eyes on him and this has caused us great pain and suffering as our mother had to struggle to support us with her little resources,” submitted Landiwe. She told the court that when their father disappeared, they were still in primary school with her twin sister, but God’s grace, they had now graduated from university and gainfully employed. Landiwe pointed out that their younger sister, who was a toddler when their father disappeared, was now pursuing university studies. “After several days of my father’s disappearance, my mother, our maternal and paternal relatives, mounted several searches within and outside of Eswatini, to no avail. At the head of our extended family was our grandfather, Reverend Cornelius Mgunyana Gumedze, who later passed away after many years of taking care of our needs,” submitted the deponent.  

She told the court that before their grandfather died, their mother, in consultation with their paternal and maternal relatives, made an attempt to source their (three children) father’s pension benefit for their maintenance but that application was not successful. She said they continued to struggle financially. “Another sad phase in our life was that as the years went by, our mother got more distraught about the disappearance of her husband and it was then that she decided to divorce him, so she could ease the burden of her suffering and have closure,” she argued.  

According to Landiwe, it was for this reason that their mother was not the one who filed the present application to have their father declared dead. The genesis of the matter is that on April 1, 2007, Philisiwe (wife) drove Bongani to the Mbabane Bus Rank, where he boarded a bus to work. On April 2, 2007, Bongani left the teacher’s quarters and never returned, to date. He did not make any contact with his wife, children, father, siblings or management of the school where he was teaching. There were no indications that Bongani was beset with any problem that would have compelled him to leave his family and his pensionable employment. In the wake of his disappearance, his then wife mounted an investigation with the help of the Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS) and they discovered that Bongani had crossed the Mhlumeni Border Post for Mozambique.   

Strange

His family said this was very strange as they had no friends or relatives in Mozambique.   Philisiwe reportedly made further attempts to locate him by engaging police officers from Mozambique and she personally travelled to the neighbouring country, where she visited popular spots in search of her then husband. She also reportedly left her husband’s pictures at the Eswatini Embassy in Mozambique and further caused an advert to be published in the Times of Eswatini for four days (March 8 to 11, 2008) but all these efforts proved abortive. Philisiwe, who was the first to approach the court in 2010, had contended that Mozambique was a dangerous place and it was possible that Bongani was murdered by thugs, who also did away with his body. It was further her argument that Mozambique was notorious for providing juju, where body parts were allegedly used and there was a place called Kamhlaba uyalingana, which allegedly, had many wizards and witchdoctors brewing powerful muti.  In that application, she had also implored the court to declared Bongani dead. The application filed by the children first appeared before Judge Mzwandile Fakudze.

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