Dying alone ugly side of life in Diaspora

IT was a a semi-detached house at the corner of a normally busy street. But in the bush way of life, nobody knows about somebody. People rarely talk to one another. Life goes on in silence as each one minds his own business.

Tatenda Bhebhe was around 59. She lived in that semi-detached house all alone. No one has seen Tatenda in the past month, but as usual, no one really cares.

The world has turned people to be loners. The noise of the street was disturbed by the wailing sirens as the usually quieter house was covered in blue flashing lights.

Within some minutes, the police started to break the door. They filed inside the house. Then we saw six officers coming out with a body bag.

Yes, it was Tatenda. She had died and nobody knew when. She lived alone and never made friends. She did not go to church or engaged in any social activty, her life was the life of working.

Her decomposing body was taken to the morgue. What had happened?

The postman from Royal Mail was welcomed by a heavy smell from the house. and he then alerted the police.

As more people live on their own here, a growing number of Zimbabweans are dying alone, with neither friends nor family surrounding them.

Maria, (last name withheld), of Peterborough died all alone, leaving behind a few possessions.

The police found in her bedroom a pot of petroleum jelly, a hot water bottle, a stuffed koala, a roll of tissue and a child’s snow globe.

It wasn’t much to show for 44 years of existence. And these few scattered items were the only clues to her identity.

Her body had lain undiscovered for months until the gas company forced open the door to her upstairs flat in Manchester.

Her body was so decomposed that an inquest could not determine the cause of death. No relatives could be traced in the UK.

However, the Zimbabwean community came together, traced her family in Zimbabwe while church members and the community at large assisted in repatriating the body to Zimbabwe. Sadly, there are a growing number of people like Maria who die with no friends or family to notice.

Some have mental health problems and find themselves detached from the world.

Others are elderly and have outlived their families.

Early this year, a Zimbabwean woman died on the train; it emerged that she had been working continuously without any rest.

In her house was a stash of more than £30 000 in cash and £10 000 in unclaimed pay sheets.

With no relative in the country, fellow church members took the money, traced the relatives in Zimbabwe and used some of the cash to send the body home.

Many Zimbabweans who dying alone here leaving behind a lot of unclaimed money in the banks.

Most of the Diasporans do not have wills and it becomes difficult to claim the funds left in the banks.

Currently, in the UK, around 600 funerals a month are unattended, a figure set to rise as it is estimated that, by 2022 16 million people in this country would be living on their own.

Where no relatives can be traced, the local authority pays for a basic cremation.

Often, the deceased’s ashes are disposed of in unmarked graves. Their stories remain untold. One wonders how many Zimbabweans are in those graves, and how they are cremated because their relatives cannot be traced.

Unfortunately, many Zimbabweans came to the UK on Malawian, South African and Botswana passports, so repatriating them without proper documentation has become a nightmare.

Some Zimbabweans changed names and dates of births in order to gain entry into the UK. These pose a great problem when they die, nobody knows exactly where they came from. As a result, most of them are given paupers’ burials.

Maria’s story was told in a Channel 4 documentary that sought to piece together the fragile history of these lost lives.

“Watch Me Disappear”, directed by 27-year-old Lucy Cohen, also looked at the death of Akinyemi Akinpelu, a Nigerian student.

One wonders what is happening with our people. Are we so disconnected from our past and relatives? In these days of social media, why and how does one become so disconnected that he/she dies alone?

Is it because we have cultivated an illusion that we work so hard here that at times we go for days or weeks without touching base with our loved ones back home?

Many people here have cut themselves off from people back home. However, the consequences of doing that can be dire.

The English community may be overcrowded, but still in that crowd where one dies alone and unnoticed a.

The relatives back home rarely make follow-ups because they are now used to the long periods owithout any form of communication.

“Dying alone is a modern phenomenon because there is a lack of extended family,” said Lonsdale, a reporter for Channel 4.

And many Zimbabweans are topping the list of those dying alone. Keeping alone in a foreign land is the worst thing to do.

It has become necessary to belong in the various groups of Zimbabweans so that at least there are people who will check after your health and can immediately notice your absence.

Malvern was a mental health nurse, who had been in the UK for over 20 years.

In those 20 years, he had never gone back to Zimbabwe. The way people at home demand money from him made him to totally disconnect with them.

There was nothing to link him with people in Zimbabwe. As he drove from work going back to his house in Luton, he was involved in a fatal car crash.

Nobody knew his relatives, not even his girlfriend. His licence led the police to his address, but there was no one there to assist.

His work place did not have any further details about his family. Malvern lies in the morgue awaiting a pauper’s burial.

Commenting on the issue, Mr S Masina urged Zimbabweans to form associations so that they can identify relatives in times of need. Being alone and lonely as a loner is really lonely.