The bodies of 17 people who died in the Usindiso fire building in Marshalltown, Johannesburg, have yet to be identified.
This has put police, who were given a year by the Gauteng health department to complete the identification process, under pressure.
On Friday it will be a year since the deadly blaze claimed the lives of 76 people in the Joburg city centre.
Lt-Col Andile Mankayi, who leads a team of three investigators, says he will go back to the Gauteng health department, which owns the mortuary where the bodies are kept, to ask for an extension.
Mankayi said the team had visited every province except Mpumalanga and the Northern Cape, conducting interviews and getting DNA samples from different sides of the families that have come to claim their loved ones.
“We cannot keep these bodies forever. It is going to be a year on August 31. We have exhausted a lot of energy,” he said.
"We've made a request to embassies because we have seen that most people were from Tanzania, Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. We have a strong suspicion that we might still have people from Tanzania, Malawi and Zimbabwe. We are not ruling out Mozambique, though their embassy was very helpful of spreading the information.
"We've asked embassies to spread the information in their countries. We did not get assistance in Tanzania, Malawi and Zimbabwe.
"There will be a time where we will say that from this juncture, all the people that have not been identified will unfortunately be buried.”
A lot of people came to say our loved ones perished in that building. But as we go to interview the family we find that these people were just hoping that their loved ones had died in the fire. Their loved ones had gone missing as far back as 2012. They were just trying their luck.
— Lt-Col Andile Mankayi
If the process gets concluded without all bodies claimed, the remaining ones will be buried by the state but not a pauper’s burial.
One body of a woman was identified by fingerprints but is yet to be taken away because the family which identified her also identified a child. However, Mankayi said the DNA of the woman and the child does not match, hence more investigation is being done.
"There are also South African families who are coming forward saying their loved ones perished in that building. However, DNA samples taken from these families have not given us positive results.
"People come and say, 'my sister was in that building.' We take samples thinking we are comparing a person to a sibling. But it becomes difficult when we later establish that the very same person who is saying is a sister is actually a cousin. We need a straight bloodline."
"If you are three brothers sharing a mother but with different father and the samples do not match, we have to get something from the father's side,” he said.
He said sometimes there is a match with people sharing mothers, hence police are trying taking as many DNA samples from the families to find a match.
Mankayi said that some people come and claim to be brothers and when questioned further they just happen to come from the same village. Police then have to track the bloodlines from the relatives to confirm the match.
Another family has a situation where a woman was positively identified by her fingerprints, but the family of the woman indicated that she had a child and identified the child among the remains of the deceased. Police ran DNA samples of all the children's remains which came from the building against the mother, but none was positive to the mother.
Mankayi said police have run tests between the child and the maternal side but did not get a match. Police are now looking into the father side to see if they can get a DNA link with the family.
A lot of families used the opportunity to just see if their loved ones who had been missing for years could be found among the deceased, he said.
"A lot of people came to say our loved ones perished in that building. But as we go to interview the family we find that these people were just hoping that their loved ones had died in the fire. Their loved ones had gone missing as far back as 2012. They were just trying their luck.”
They also have to get interpreters when interacting with families as some do not speak English, Mankayi added.
He urged those who believe that their loved ones died in the Usindiso building fire to come forward and call him on 082 413 2141, Sgt Matthew Mudanalwo on 067 221 2999 or Sgt Moses Ramovha on 079 217 4517.
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