Durban – The body of Sotho Minority Group leader Thola Mosala will be exhumed 47 years after his death.
“The State (CATS) of Serious Organised Crime Investigation of the Hawks wishes to notify the public about exhumation of the body of the late Thola Mosala which is likely to take place in 21 days,” said provincial Hawks spokesperson Captain Yolisa Mgolodela.
She said CATS was in the process of speeding up the investigations on the death of Mosala who was detained on August 3, 1976.
Mosala was the leader of the Sotho Minority Group and was a political activist strongly opposed to the independence of the Homeland.
“He is reported to have been incarcerated in Butterworth prison for 87 days before he died on 26 November 1976, allegedly from internal bleeding from a gastric ulcer.”
Mgolodela said the body will be exhumed at Menjini Location graveyard at Black Diamond in Matatiele.
In another incident in KwaZulu-Natal the body of a 12-year-old boy was exhumed from a coffee farm in KwaNdengezi.
KZN police spokesperson Lieutenant-Colonel Nqobile Gwala said it was alleged the child was buried without the police being informed of his death.
She said the circumstances surrounding the incident were being probed and an inquest had been opened.
The KZN MEC for Social Development Nonhlanhla Khoza said authorities were alerted to the illegal burial and had acted swiftly.
The victim had suffered from cerebral palsy.
IOL