Forgotten bodies 'discovered'

2007-03-23 09:09

Johannesburg - Fifteen unidentified bodies, badly decomposed and with only shreds of clothing, were found at a mortuary in Umzimkulu, KwaZulu-Natal police said on Thursday.

Superintendent Zandra Hechter said the grisly find was made by two health department officials on Monday.

On further investigation, it was found that the refrigerators at the mortuary were not running, the bodies had no identification tags, or the tags contained insufficient information, and there was no paperwork relating to the bodies.

"It is so strange... the smell was so bad that the police officer who attended the scene said he could not eat supper afterward and had to throw his clothes away," she said.

The mortuary was located at the Umzimkulu Police Station and was previously manned by police.

Station head superintendent Simphiwe Ngobe said the bodies had been at the mortuary for the past four years. He said they were unidentified on arrival at the mortuary.

"Those bodies were of unknown people when they got here - from drownings, some were bones," he said.

It was unclear why they had been left unattended for so long or why post mortems were not conducted.

'Nothing was done'

Ngobe said he always complained about the bodies being there, but nothing was ever done about it.

He had also not received any complaints about the refrigerators being out of order.

Hechter said the mortuary was taken over by the health department last year.

"They were supposed to have taken over [the mortuary] in December last year," said Hechter.

The mortuary was also located in a cross border municipal area which fell under the Eastern Cape.

Eastern Cape health department spokesperson Sizwe Kupelo said he was aware that the bodies had been found, but referred all queries to the police.

"We have learned that the bodies were under police at the time... we are still in the process of taking over the mortuaries, the process is not complete," he said.

Police have opened 15 inquest dockets in order to discover the identities of the deceased.

They will also investigate whether the proper registers were kept at the mortuary, whether proper inspections were conducted, why the refrigerators were not running, and why the bodies were in the mortuary for such a long period.

Local community leaders had been approached to ask local residents to come forward if they had filed missing person reports.

- SAPA