Families of Enyobeni tavern tragedy victims want documents on cause of deaths

The parents of the 21 children who died in the Enyobeni tavern tragedy are planning to stage a picket at the Eastern Cape Department of Health’s forensic department in East-London on Friday. They are demanding a release of the written information about what led to the deaths of their children.

The 21 young people died at the Enyobeni tavern in Scenery Park, in East London in June last year.

The parents were informed verbally last year that asphyxiation was the cause of death, and say they were not given any form of documentation.

They rejected asphyxiation as the cause and now want a second opinion.

Families’ spokesperson, Khululekile Ncandana, says the government has treated them unfairly.

“If someone died of an accident or anything like that after the post-mortem is done those results would be released to the parents or the family members. So, they know what killed their family member. But in this case, we don’t have anything that says to us what killed our children and we do not know why they are holding that information from us,” says Ncandana.

Meanwhile the case against the tavern owners resumed today: