Cape Town - Police are struggling with 17 bodies that remain unidentified following the floods that hit KwaZulu-Natal, parts of the Eastern Cape and the North West four months ago.
This was revealed by acting head of the national Disaster Management Centre, Jurgens Dyssel, when he briefed the Ad Hoc Joint Committee on Flood Disaster Relief and Recovery on Friday.
There were 457 fatalities and 82 missing people reported in KwaZulu-Natal during the floods that caused massive damage to infrastructure and the displacement of people in April.
The Eastern Cape had seven reported fatalities, one person missing and three reported injuries.
Dyssel said their discussions with the SAPS indicated that there were 17 bodies that were still unidentified.
“Through DNA matches they have four potential matches. The difficulty that they have is apparently family matches and it requires further investigation before they can make positive identification,” he said.
Dyssel also said it was difficult for the police to deal with the matter.
“The way they explained to me is that the individuals who have passed away were found in vast areas across the disaster zone, with different time zones and in different conditions.
“They were taken to different mortuaries at different times and post mortems were done on them. This makes the identification process a bit more difficult in the sense that when police go into areas to take DNA from a potential living family member to match it with the DNA of the body.
Search missions were being conducted at Marianhill, KwaDengezi and Ntuzuma and affected families continued to receive psychosocial support through Department of Social Development programmes.
EFF MP Ntombuvuyo Mente said there should be a system to store DNA of the families whose members were missing so that upon recovery of bodies, it was a matter of comparing the 17 unidentified bodies.
She also said she was unhappy that the identification process of bodies was tedious.
“We knew that the process was going to be tedious right from the beginning and that is why globally many countries have DNA banks of every citizen, but not for South Africa.”
Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma said from what she understood, there were unidentified bodies and that DNA has been done.
“They are going to do the DNA of relatives of missing persons. That needs the Health Department and the police so that there has to be an agreement between Health and the police,” Dlamini Zuma said.
“That discussion is taking place. They are going to do them,” she added.
Cape Times