Just days after the catastrophic bus crash which claimed the lives of 45 Batswana who were headed for an Easter church pilgrimage in Moria, Limpopo, seven South Africans lost their lives in Botswana while they were returning from a church service. Four people were injured.
The victims were travelling in a taxi and were returning from the St John Church in Kanye on April 28.
While the South African government pulled out all the stops, offering immense support to the families of the 45 Botswana nationals — and the sole survivor of the crash — the South Africans who crashed in Botswana say they have not received much support from the South African government.
TimesLIVE Premium on Thursday spoke to an Mpumalanga woman, Amanda Mabilisa, who was devastated after losing her nephew, Mike Petros Mabilisa, in the fatal crash.
Mabilisa lamented the lack of support from the South African government in bringing their relative, and several others, home nearly three weeks after the tragedy.
While the family waits to hear whether help is coming, the department of international relations and co-operation (Dirco) told TimesLIVE Premium its foreign offices can offer only “non-financial” help to families, except in extraordinary circumstances (which did not apply in this case).
Mabilisa, his wife and 12 other passengers were heading back to South Africa when they collided head-on with a Range Rover, according to his aunt, Amanda.
“I think the Range Rover tried to make a U-turn. Those in the front of the taxi died and the four in the back survived. Mabilisa's wife survived,” she said.
According to Amanda, the family was informed of Mabilisa's death by the St John's bishop, who was apparently given the news by Botswana police. He too lost a family member in the crash, she said.
The task of getting more information and travelling to the country then fell on each family. In their case, Mabilisa's eldest son.
“We feel frustrated and left out by the government because, apparently, the Botswana police investigating officer informed [his South African counterpart] and they informed the church after they found out that these were congregants of St John's church. So the bishop phoned all the family members of those in that taxi.
“We only got information that our nephew had died but we did not know the whereabouts of our daughter-in-law, his wife. So I had to communicate with [people I know]. The son had to drive to Botswana with some friends.,” she said.
Mabilisa's son identified his father's body but he was one of the few able to do so. Some of the other families are yet to identify their loved ones due to not having passports or the necessary documentation, according to Amanda.
She claimed that the SA consulate was informed soon after the accident and that the commissioner went once to visit the survivors alongside Limpopo health MEC Dr Phophi Ramathuba.
Ramathuba had travelled to Botswana to accompany the bodies of the 45 deceased Batswana back to their homeland. They were given a respectable send-off with funeral parlour Avbob coming to government's aid.
The Limpopo health department, in a post on Facebook, said that Ramathuba and commissioner Thaninga Shope-Soumah visited them after the funerals of the 45.
“They [the SA representatives] only went once. Botswana was a lot more efficient, the MVA [motor vehicle fund] took over the responsibility ... of their health [for the injured] but on landing in South Africa, no-one wanted to take care of the patients.”
After being admitted to a private hospital in Botswana, the four injured were transported to government hospitals where, according to Amanda, her daughter-in-law had a six-hour wait before being attended to.
Amanda expressed disappointment over the foreign office's handling of the situation. She said the only development in the saga was a Zoom meeting held to discuss repatriation among other issues, but this could happen only once all the families had identified their loved ones. But to do this, they need passports.
“So a lot of the families in South Africa had frustrations because the government did not help those without passports. They had to apply for emergency passports, and I think they were denied that ... because basically that's what's causing the delay in the repatriation of the bodies.
“The government was not assisting, even to issue travel documents. Because the investigating officers in Botswana have done their job, the autopsies were done in four days,” she explained.
The delays have led to the family having to put their funeral plans on ice.
According to Amanda, the St John's leadership stepped in and offered to assist with repatriating the bodies.
A spokesperson for the church confirmed that the bodies had been repatriated to South Africa on Wednesday evening.
"All the bodies came back on Wednesday, including that of Mabilisa. But the son is [handling] the whole matter and was with me yesterday [Thursday] doing the identification. So they are finalising the funeral arrangements.
"The main person we were dealing with in that family was the son ... who even went to Botswana to identify the body of his son and yesterday [Thursday] was at the mortuary to arrange the burial. He is onboard and now on the family group that was being updated on a daily basis on the developments."
On why this information may not have reached the family, the spokesperson said that the issue has generally been that multiple family members would reach out for information and end often ended up with some of it.
And while Bopape didn't want to delve into the allegations around the government's alleged poor handling of the matter, he confirmed that the SA commissioner had been very supportive throughout the entire process.
"The high commissioner of South Africa was helping us in terms of the policies of Botswana, remember that this is now another country, and what must happen.
"I can't say much ... but they were advising and linking us with the police of Botswana. They were supportive and unfortunately, you won't satisfy all the role-players."
The spokesperson would also not confirm whether the child of the church leader was among those deceased but he said they were shocked over what happened.
Dirco spokesperson Clayson Monyela also confirmed the return of the bodies earlier this week.
He also said that the department had dispatched the deputy director-general responsible for Africa, Tebogo Seokolo, to the country to "go and deal with the delays that the families were experiencing in getting the bodies back to SA for burials".
"He did that and successfully intervened. The issue of the costs then came to the fore because the bodies had been moved to a private mortuary and there was an issue of affordability from the families.
"In terms of our policy, as I said, the consular assistance is non-financial but through the intervention of government and the office of the deputy president, we did manage to get somebody private to pay for the costs ... which then enabled the bodies to be repatriated back to SA. So government went the extra mile, in addition to the political intervenion of sending an official from Dirco to deal with our counterparts in Botswana".
Monyela had earlier told TimesLIVE Premium that its foreign officers only offered non-financial assistance to distressed citizens abroad, in line with their policy, and only intervened in exceptional circumstances.
"We always advise for travellers to foreign countries to always get travel insurance because in situations where unfortunate things like this happen and they don't have the money, travel insurance kicks in," he said.
