High number of unclaimed bodies attributed to delays in DNA testing

Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Health has attributed the high number of unclaimed and unidentified bodies in state mortuaries in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape to delays in DNA testing.

The committee which was in Durban heard that since last month about 3 186 bodies have not been claimed in KwaZulu-Natal and 526 in the Eastern Cape.

The committee’s Chairperson Dr Sbongiseni Dlomo says, “There are delays in some of the laboratories for DNA testing and fingerprint testing. But there’s probably a number of citizens of the world who are in the country undocumented and therefore actually if they pass on, there will be no record that we do keep of their fingerprints in any part, that is another issue.”

“But we think there could be another additional point, for KwaZulu-Natal in particular with the looting and the floods in 2021, where some of the people were either reluctant to come forward in the case that this is the relative of mine,” adds Dlomo.-Reporting by Sthembile Shabalala