Church s haunting tribute’to victims

On a biting cold winter’s morning, church caretaker Silva Cossa stands at the fence line with a bucket of white satin ribbons.

The 62-year-old dutifully braids each length of fabric around each palisade in the quiet, his gnarled hands pausing only to greet a passing friend.

Silva is a practised hand. Every day he ties hundreds of ribbons to the fence outside the St James Presbyterian Church in Bedfordview, Ekurhuleni.

Each ribbon denotes a life lost to the Covid-19 pandemic, and with the death toll reaching 5,033 on Sunday night, the church is fast running out of fence space.

“Once our fence line is full, we’re thinking about using a different colour of ribbon to symbolise 10 or 20 lives lost. It is a fairly grim undertaking,” pastor Gavin Lock said.

The stark reminder of the death toll, he said, was to honour those who had died and counter a rising narrative that the Covid-19 pandemic was a hoax.

“It was important for us, without being sidetracked by the rhetoric, to be able to remember those who had been lost and to stand in solidarity with those spouses and partners, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters who were grieving a loved one,” Lock added.

“During the early days of the pandemic, to many the virus seemed surreal, as hardly anyone knew of someone who was infected, let alone who had died from the illness. Now we have lost people in our congregation ... some of our parishioners are also critically ill. This is real to us,” he said.

SA has recorded 364,000 cases since the pandemic reached our shores in February, rising to fifth in global rankings.

Across SA, hospitals are stretched to their limits, with health minister Zweli Mkhize announcing that SA is in the eye of the storm. —