Cape Town – With gang violence and social economic issues having a cold grip on communities, undertakers have noticed an influx of young people's bodies stored in morgues in the last few months.
Yesterday, Police Minister Bheki Cele released crime stats for the first quarter of the 2022/2023 financial year and said there was a 0.2% increase in murder cases in the Western Cape.
More than 994 people were murdered in the province between April and June, and of those 994 people, 498 people died from gunshot wounds.
Undertakers also added that funerals of young people had spiked from one to four a day, to six to 12 a day.
According to the provincial health forensic pathology services, 1 307 young persons between the ages of one day and 17 years old were stored in the department's morgue facilities in 2020. In 2021, that figure rose to 1 422.
From 2020 to 2021, the overall number of children's bodies stored in the facility aged 10 to 14 years went from 112 to 140 bodies; children aged one to 11 months went from 460 to 555 bodies; and children aged one to four years went up from 171 to 204 bodies stored in the facility.
Additionally, the department noticed that between 2020 and 2021, cases involving natural death, saw the number of bodies stored in the facility go from 479 to 492. With cases involving road accidents, young people's bodies stored in their facility went up from 127 to 176.
In cases where the investigation is still ongoing, bodies stored in the facility rose from 165 to 251.
Monray Adams, the owner of Monray Royal Funerals, said that while there was enough storage space to cater for the influx of bodies, there was also a demand in covering more funerals a day.
“I have noticed the influx of young people's bodies at the mortuaries and to be honest, it is a sad reality as the undertaker's face each day. I have seen an increase in younger men coming with stab wounds or gunshot wounds due to being involved in a crossfire.
“I’ve also noticed that there are more bodies of young girls who had taken their own lives stored in our facility
“Most of the bodies that come through are from the Cape Flats communities. It is so sad to see families endure such pain; the most saddening reality is to see young people's lives cut short, and their bodies piling up in mortuaries.
“Even though our facilities cater for the influx, there is a demand placed on us. Before the the influx, we would do about one to four funerals per day, but lately we found ourselves doing six to 12 funerals a day,” said Adams.
Concurring with this, president of the National Funeral Directors Association of South Africa, Lawrence Konyana, added that the biggest challenge was cases where post-mortem examinations had to be done for unnatural deaths in many areas.
Delays are experienced in those cases due to the shortage of relevant personnel.
With the fourth-quarter crime statistics indicating an increase in gang-related murders in the province, and gang-related murders accounting for 23.9% of Western Cape murders, provincial CPF board chairperson Fransina Lukas said that the realities seen in morgues were projections of what actually occurred in communities.
“What we see in mortuaries is a reflection of what is happening in many of our communities of the Cape Flats. Gang violence is the order of the day where young people that grew up together now kill each other over territories. As a result, innocent lives get taken during these turf wars.
“The realities experienced in communities are exacerbated by a lot of things that have affected the morale of these children.
“From poverty, to unemployment and young boys being raised by single mothers, with no father figure to give them direction, the reality in the morgues paint a clear picture about what goes in our communities.
“From my perspective, a way to move forward. All levels of government need to zoom in and look into communities so that the issues which are usually social in nature can be addressed,” said Lukas.
With Salt River Mortuary closing its doors, and the department looking forward to commissioning the Observatory Forensic Pathology Institute (OFPI) as of 2023, Emergency Medical and Forensic Pathology Services (FPS) spokesperson, Deanna February, said that the consideration for a new facility was due to the current facility reaching the end of its use.
“The department had foreseen and forecast the increase in all admissions to our facilities and the new facility has been specifically designed to adequately manage the increase in cases.
“The building has basically been completed and we are utilising a phased approach to commission the building, starting with our administrative component followed by our histopathology lab.
“There was an additional package of works that was required to finalise the works in some of our more specialised areas which is commencing shortly and will be finalised within the first quarter of next year.
“The entire building will be fully functional in that period, and then the decommissioning of the Salt River facility will commence,” said February.
Wayne Mitten, assistant director at the Salt River Mortuary added that with the new premises, they were hoping to improve on visual identification of the deceased and to accommodate families who wish to personally mourn their loved ones.
“We are learning from the old building and seeing where we can make improvements, even for our staff. We allow families to perform spiritual ceremonies and with the new facility we are also looking at accommodating that,” said Mitten.
Additional reporting by Genevieve Serra.