It was supposed to be a decent burial of 24 bodies that were to be buried at Mbaleni cemetery.
The funeral, that of unknown people whose bodies were kept at government mortuaries in Vhembe, were buried with the help of the Thulamela municipality, the Department of Health and the Vhembe Funeral Practitioners Association.

Most of the dead are from neighbouring African countries and some local people whose relatives cannot bury them.

The three organisations have partnered and buried the dead in the past with dignity, but the mass funeral at Mbaleni last Thursday left many with more questions than answers.

The bodies were supposed to have been collected early from the mortuary at Tshildzini, but the woman in charge of the mortuary only arrived an hour later. At the cemetery, it was clear that things were not going well. The graves were dug while the formal programme, which was attended by the mayor and her councillors, was in progress.

To show that things were completely out of hand, two new and unregistered back-actors were roped in to speed up the digging of the mass graves.

All along, hearses with bodies were parked at the cemetery, waiting for the digging to be completed.
The bodies were then put in one big grave, with coffins very close to each other. During the funeral, municipal workers made fun of a sign at the gravesite. The sign had details of the deceased on the one side and Pigs or sale on the other.

Undertakers who spoke on low tones said it was not the first time they had buried paupers in the area but it looked like the municipality wasn’t prepared for the funeral at all. He also complained about the depth of the grave and said should it rain, the bodies would be washed out.

“So many things went wrong with this funeral, because we had to wait for an hour at the hospital, with no one to open the mortuary, so that we could pick up the bodies,” said the undertaker, who didn’t want to be named.

Vho Maine Mbilivhili Neluvhola, who is the general secretary of the Vhembe Traditional Healers Association, said African custom did not allow people to be buried together in one grave, especially if they were not related.  “Their souls will never rest in peace. Even their relatives, who did not bury them according to custom, will not have peace of mind. As Africans we have our way of burying the dead and if we do not follow that, we are inviting curses from the ancestors,” he said.

Thulamela Municipality spokesperson Nndwamato Tshiila said everything had gone well. “This is not the first time that we bury them like this in a mass grave and we are surprised about this noise,” said Tshiila.

“Everything happened at short notice and we were forced to rope in two other back-actors to help speed up the digging. As for the Pigs for sale sign, the grave is not ours. The family asked us to help them dig the grave. They did not have tombstone and they just put that piece of zinc without our knowledge,” he said.