The Consul General of Zimbabwe in South Africa, Arial Phiri says they will work hand in hand with the South African Police Service to identify their citizens from the 78 bodies, retrieved in Stilfontein.

Phiri said this during a media briefing at shaft 11.

Phiri was accompanied by acting Provincial Police Commissioner Patrick Asaneng.

Phase three of the government led retrieval operation, which started on Monday this week, has retrieved 246 illegal miners and 78 bodies.

Phiri explains, “As you are all aware that those who are deceased, they were not documented so they did not have any particulars on them. I don’t want to believe that all of them are Zimbabweans but we want to make sure that we identify and satisfy ourselves as to who are Zimbabweans amongst the deceased and then we’ll take our next step in repatriation of the deceased back to Zimbabwe. So, they have a decent funeral in Zimbabwe.”

Spokesperson for the provincial Health Department, Tshegofatso Mothibedi, says they will extract and archive DNA from any unidentified bodies, should they not be identified within the prescribed legal period.

“The law dictates to us that we can only have a body between 30 and 60 days. Beyond that if don’t have any means of verification or anybody comes up, we are able to extract DNA and archive it and bury them. Maybe later, two, three years, whatever time later, someone comes and say we have our loved ones there, we’re able to conduct a DNA and confirm with the families then repatriate those bodies.”

Stilfontein Mine | Zimbabwe to identify countrymen