An Intombi Camp family is desperately seeking answers after a Boksburg funeral parlour delivered the wrong body to their home following the death of their loved one.
The situation is even more traumatic for the deceased’s sister, Nomusa Dlamini, and the rest of her family since her sister had supposedly already been buried without their knowledge. “They have robbed us of our final goodbye and performing the correct ancestry prayers and tradition, how is my sister supposed to rest and how are we, as a family, supposed to find closure?” asked Dlamini.
Dlamini told The Ladysmith Herald that she was called by her sister’s son, Thabang Motoung, to inform her of her sister’s passing. “It was a terrible shock and I left Ladysmith immediately to be with him and prepare for the funeral,” said Dlamini, who sat outside her small home in Begonia Road, fighting back the tears as she slowly spoke about finding the wrong body in her sister’s coffin.
Dlamini explained that her sister, Lungile Dlamini, passed away due to natural causes on 15 October and that there had been no funeral policy in place to help with the arrangements. “We were told that this specific funeral parlour will assist and bring Lungile back home and then we would be able to lay her to rest.”
The family met at the late Lungile’s home and were told that her body will be brought home the following week. Dlamini explained that all arrangements had been made, however, on the date scheduled by the funeral parlor, they contacted Lungile’s son to cancel, saying that the mortuary van will only be able to bring the body home the following day.
The family did not mind waiting an extra day and continued with the last prayers while assisting Lungile’s son in the grieving process. Dlamini said that the next day, the body was brought in a locked coffin. “The coffin was brought inside the home and we started our ritual to collect the spirit and assist with the pass over.”
Dlamini said that something “told” her to look into the coffin and, stopping the wake and ritual prayer, she called for help from Lungile’s son to assist her in opening the locked coffin. “The coffin was locked and it was difficult to unscrew the lock on it.”
Dlamini said that when they finally managed to unlock the coffin, it felt like her soul had left her body as she lifted up the coffin lid to look inside. “At first, I could not believe what I was seeing and kept on asking people, why does Lungile look so different? But once the shock had settled, we realised that it was not Lungile in the coffin, but the body of a man.”
Dlamini said that it felt like she was going mad. Others at the funeral also took a closer look and found that it was not the body of Lungile. Dlamini explained that the whole household cried out in despair and family members took a while to get their emotions under control.
“After making calls, the funeral parlour collected the body and told us they will return with the correct body.” Hours had passed and finally a call was made to explain to Dlamini that her sister had already been buried in an unmarked grave. “No other details were given and even when her son and friends had gone to the parlour, they said that she was already buried.”
Dlamini, a mother of five children, grandmother of five grandchildren and the only breadwinner in her household, said that to date, no further explanation has been given and that she had to leave Gauteng as she had already lost out on a week’s wages and could not further assist in finding out what had gone so horribly wrong. “My family depends on me and I had to leave Gauteng with no closure and no answers. We have asked that her body be dug up because we don’t trust the funeral parlour.”
Dlamini said that shock, grief and trauma plagues their family. “Lungile’s son is beyond his mind. I speak to him nearly every day to find out what is going to be done, but nothing. Her son is not doing well. I just want my sister to come home so that we can say goodbye to her in our own way. I know that we did not have a funeral policy or the money to pay for a funeral but this does not mean we, or my dead sister, deserve to be treated like this. We don’t know if the unmarked grave is that of my sister, only what we have been told. How are we supposed to find closure?” wept Dlamini.
The funeral parlour, whose name is known to The Ladysmith Herald, was questioned in detail, however, no further information or comments about the incident were forthcoming at the time of going to press.
