Human remains found in Bulawayo suburb
HUMAN remains have been found in Bulawayo’s Woodville suburb, police have confirmed.
Bulawayo police spokesperson Inspector Precious Simango said the remains were discovered by a passer-by on Sunday. “We are investigating a case where human body parts including a skull, backbone and arm bone were found in Woodville suburb in a bushy area near Newburgh road. The remains were found by a passer-by who was on his way to board a kombi. The remains were partially burnt and the scene had evidence of some grass fire,” said Insp Simango.
“The remains were taken to the United Bulawayo Hospitals for post mortem. We are yet to establish whether the discovered body parts are of a child or an adult, a female or a male. So at the moment I can’t say much about the case as details are still sketchy. The post-mortem will determine how the case will be handled.”
National University of Science and Technology’s Applied Genetic Testing Centre (AGTC) director Mr Zephaniah Dhlamini said it was possible to establish the identity of the person.
“We can take the skull as a point of reference and extract the DNA from the smaller teeth. But the procedure is that the police should take the body to a pathologist and the pathologist can bring us the pieces that we want. To verify the body’s identity, relatives of the deceased have to come forward. Without the relatives there is nothing we can do in terms of revealing the identity of the remains,” said Mr Dhlamini.
He said if relatives do not come forward, it would not be possible to positively identify the person as is the case with a murdered teenage girl whose body was found in Iminyela suburb in June this year.
Police concluded that the teenager who was believed to be 16 or 17 years old at the time of her death, was murdered and her body has been stuck at the UBH mortuary ever since.
“We have her DNA profile but we can’t match it to anyone as her relatives have not come forward. Even in this case we can profile the DNA but cannot match to anyone if no one claiming to be a relative comes forward,” Mr Dhlamini said. — @nqotshili