The waiting dead: mortuary strike stalls final goodbyes

Ten days ago, Siyabonga Gwala was allegedly on his way to rob a shop in Isipingo, south of Durban, when he and his gang were intercepted by the police.

Gunshots rang out, breaking the silence of that Saturday morning.

In the aftermath, bullet casings and bodies lay in the streets. By the time it was over, nine gang members were dead. Gwala was one of them.

But while his family acknowledge that he might have been up to no good that morning, they are angry that they haven’t yet been able to bury him – all because of a strike at the Magwaza Maphalala Street (formerly Gale Street) Medico-Legal Mortuary.

They aren’t the only ones.

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