Police order return of dead miner’s body
POLICE in Gwanda last week ordered the return of the body of a miner from Mberengwa before it was buried for further investigations and a post-mortem, Sunday News has learnt.
The miner, Mugovewashe Kwashira (27), died on Monday last week after he plunged 160 metres from a ladder that he was using to go down a mine shaft at Vumbachikwe Mine.
Matabeleland South Province police spokesperson Inspector Philisani Ndebele confirmed the incident saying there was a communication breakdown between the hospital and the deceased’s family.
“When the person died the body was taken to Gwanda Provincial Hospital mortuary awaiting transfer to United Bulawayo Hospitals for a post-mortem but before this happened there was communication breakdown as the family of the deceased claimed the body in Gwanda and they went to Mberengwa without our knowledge and a post-mortem had not yet been done yet,” he said.
Insp Ndebele said they were then notified of the incident and they ordered the family to return the body to Gwanda where it was eventually taken to UBH for a post-mortem.
“The body came to Bulawayo where the postmortem showed that there was nothing suspicious with the corpse. It is, however, standard procedure that when a person dies a post-mortem is carried out to ascertain the cause of death and also for the police to carry out any investigations. We blame human error in this incident,” he said.
A post-mortem can only be waivered if the resident magistrate of the area sees it fit. Sources at the gold mine said the body had been ferried to Mberengwa for burial when the police ordered it back. The source said there were news circulating at the mine compound that Kwashira had died in unclear circumstances.
The source added that mine workers are up in arms with the company’s management as they allegedly failed to follow standard procedure after the death of the miner.
“What usually happens is that if someone dies in a shaft the shaft is closed for two to three days as it will need to be inspected. The police and mine inspectors do their investigations while no work is taking place but here we were surprised when management said we must ignore the incident and continue working. People resumed work the same Monday after the incident,” said a worker at the mine who declined to be named fearing victimisation.
Some of the workers claimed that management said they must ignore the blood of the late which is still at the place where the incident happened after being told that “his relatives will come and do some rituals first”.
According to reports from the mine, the conveyor cage that the miners usually use to go down the shaft was down on the day and the workers were told to use a ladder instead.
They said the rule is that operations should be suspended when the cage is malfunctioning until it is fully repaired but management is said to have insisted that they use a ladder. The workers said the deceased while using the ladder, slipped and fell into the shaft leading to his death. Efforts to get a comment from Vumbachikwe Mine management in Gwanda were fruitless yesterday.