Body sliced open to fit into coffin

coffin

A family from Entumbane in Bulawayo was horrified when the body of their relative failed to fit in a coffin due to inexplicable swelling

This forced parlour to slice it open as a way of making it shrink.

The body of the late Ethely Chuku, who died at her home last week last Sunday was taken to the Falakhe Funeral Parlour that same day and was buried last Friday.

Upon arrival at Falakhe, this reporter was grabbed by the woman’s grief-stricken relatives and marched into the parlour to view the body as well and discover that the facial features were barely discernable with no lips or sign of ears. The body that was wrapped in a blanket, seemed to have been crammed and squeezed into the coffin.

Relatives said that the corpse’s hands had been outstretched and could not be fitted into the coffin prompting the parlour’s staff to twist the limbs and forcibly stuff the arms into the coffin with no regard for the disfigurement that could result from such action, especially since they feared that the limbs could have been broken in the process.

After the aggrieved family had had clashes with parlour officials over the deteriorated state of the body which they claim was never refrigerated, the funeral procession left the premises with some family members threatening to come back and inflict bodily harm on the staff.

“How can a body that was refrigerated on Sunday rot by Tuesday? They are lying to us because when we came here on Tuesday they sent us away saying the body was still being prepared and we should return on Thursday. When we came yesterday my sister’s body was covered with blisters and her facial features were distorted almost beyond recognition,’’ said Miss Theodora Nkomo.

She said the family was planning to meet the parlour’s management for a refund as they had paid US$1 007 for what turned out to be a nightmarish service provided by the funeral parlour.

Falakhe officials, who refused to be identified, confirmed the incident, adding that they had spoken to the family and told them that they should bury their relative on Wednesday as they could do nothing to stop mother nature since decomposition was a natural consequence of dying.

“It’s not our problem at all. It’s their fault because we were kind enough to advise them to bury the body on Wednesday but they insisted on doing it on Friday saying they were waiting for Minister John Nkomo to come but in the end he never even showed up,’’ said a lady who was later identified as Mrs Mabhena.

She shifted blame to the Mpilo officials who had the body from 5am on Monday to conduct a postmortem and returned it at around 4pm, adding that the body was probably left exposed for those 11 hours leading to its deterioration.

“They are a bunch of liars and it’s hard to even bother commenting on things that are not factual. We tried but they couldn’t appreciate. We even brought a pathologist to explain to them what had transpired,’’ she complained, adding that the clients had even vandalised property by breaking some of the chairs and she was seriously considering laying charges and having them arrested.

A relative of the Nkomo family who refused to be named rubbished the allegations of vandalism saying they were too busy mourning to destroy property and accused the parlour of being careless.

In another incident, a disgruntled Lobengula family vowed never to set foot at Falakhe Funeral Parlour citing gross negligence and insensitive treatment after the parlour reportedly made a mix-up by giving the Hojani family the wrong body for burial after they had coughed up more than US$1 000 to the parlour.

Mr Zebedia Hojani said he got the shock of his life when he went to Falakhe to identify the body of his son who had died in South Africa a month ago only to find the right coffin, the right clothes on the wrong body.

“I was really pained because we paid a lot of money and those people go on to put the body of a stranger in our coffin and even clothe it with brand new clothes we had bought for our son,’’ said the visibly traumatised Mr Hojani.

A neighbour to the Hojani family told this reporter that the community was still in shock over the incident, adding that it was bad luck for such a thing to happen in a family and that it would be necessary to conduct a cleansing ceremony.

“Samangala mntanami sifika khonangale koFalakhe basinika isidumbu sekhiwa, sababaza ukuthi kambe uNorman wahamba eGoli waphenduka eselicoloured njani. Worse, futhi elelihlo elilodwa,’’ she said preferring to remain anonymous. (We were shocked when we were shown the body of a coloured person with one eye because we didn’t understand how Norman could go to South Africa and come back to us as a coloured? Worse still a one-eyed coloured!)

Mr Hojani said when the body of his son was finally found, having been misplaced by the parlour, he was told to pay a further 2 500 rand as a penalty for ‘failing to make a positive identification of his son’’ as parlour officials claimed that they had to travel back to South Africa to double-check.

“How was I supposed to make a positive identification of a body whose origins I didn’t know? I told them that it was not my son and they punished me for that when they were the ones who botched everything up. In fact, they were very dodgy and we suspect that they could have clandestinely transported two bodies in that one coffin because tell me, where would that body have come from and how did it end up in my son’s coffin which was supposedly sealed from SA?’’ charged Hojani who said he had to enlist the help of the councillor of Lobengula to intervene.

Hojani laid the blame for the mix-up on a man he identified as a Mr Mabhena who went to fetch the body. He said it was upsetting for the family to see that the parlour had made no effort to wash the clothes before clothing Norman with them despite the fact that they had initially been worn by another corpse.

Officials at Falakhe responded by blasting the family saying that they had failed to make a positive identification of their own child because of family politics and squabbles.

“That family came here and started disagreeing on the identity of the deceased, how can that be our fault? Thina phela asimazi umuntu wabo. We went out of our way to assist them but they are a very divided lot,’’ said an unfazed Mrs Mabhena who went on to deny any knowledge of a one-eyed coloured having been erroneously swapped with the late.

The media has of late been awash with stories of how funeral parlours are short-changing clients amid calls for a thorough investigation into how these institutions are being run, with a recent report about a body that decomposed to the point of being filled with maggots while being held at a funeral parlour in the city.