WARNING: This is Version 1 of my old archive, so Photos will NOT work and many links will NOT work. But you can find articles by searching on the Titles. There is a lot of information in this archive. Use the SEARCH BAR at the top right. Prior to December 2012; I was a pro-Christian type of Conservative. I was unaware of the mass of Jewish lies in history, especially the lies regarding WW2 and Hitler. So in here you will find pro-Jewish and pro-Israel material. I was definitely WRONG about the Boeremag and Janusz Walus. They were for real.
Original Post Date: 2009-05-18 Time: 17:00:03 Posted By: Jan
By Alex Eliseev and Beauregard Tromp
Lila Romeeo. A wife, a girlfriend, a mother? The two words tattooed on an arm are clues to the identity of body 1261/2008 – a man killed during the xenophobic violence that engulfed Gauteng this time last year.
Like dozens of others slain, this man lies in a cheap wooden box, buried three to a grave, with a numbered brick to remind the world of who he was. The tattoo not only sets the man apart from the others, but links him to Mozambique through the Portuguese-sounding woman’s name.
In two weeks last May, over 60 people were murdered. Many of them were never identified and would never return to their homelands to rest with their families.
Continued Below ↓
| This man lies in a cheap wooden box, buried three to a grave |
The Mozambican Community Association (MCA) has identified 26 of their country’s dead nationals.The bodies have been repatriated and taken to their families for burial. A further 18, who remain unidentified, are believed to be Mozambicans and were given pauper burials by the SA government.
The Star’s attempts to get a comprehensive list of the at least 60 killed proved fruitless, with police claiming that each province was responsible for compiling its own list and no centralised database existed.
The Health Department, which runs the mortuaries, was unable to shed light on the number of dead or their identities, saying they did not differentiate between those killed during the xenophobic violence and those killed at other times.
The department confirmed “an increased intake of bodies at the Germiston and Joburg mortuaries during the period of the xenophobic attacks”. Both mortuaries, however, recorded lower body counts last May compared to the previous year.
During this period, unidentified bodies were fingerprinted and photographed, with pictures sent to embassies for identification, the department said. According to regulations, all bodies not identified within 30 days are given state burials. In some cases, police investigators ask for bodies to remain longer at the morgue.
| The fate of both cases now hangs in the balance |
Health Department spokeswoman Patricia Mokoena confirmed that no bodies relating to the xenophobic violence remained in Gauteng’s morgues.
It took The Star a week to track down the details of a single case – that of the man with the Lila Romeeo tattoo.
Security guard Sibongile Masondo was on duty at the Angelo train station in Reiger Park, Boksburg, when she made the discovery. In the tall, dry, winter grass, away from the main pedestrian path, a man lay. His pants were pulled down to his thighs, revealing a pair of soiled underpants. His arms were folded over his head, as if to protect it from blades and blows.
When the body was found on May 24, scavengers had gnawed at the man’s face, leading police to believe he had been lying there for about five days.
“It seemed like an animal ate at the cheek, the nose, etc,” the pathologist who conducted the post-mortem noted.
His attackers had done much worse, stabbing the man at least nine times in the face and neck.
MCA chairman Jonas Sithole said many Mozambicans who came to SA looking for work were from rural areas, and their families often did not know how to pursue a missing loved one.
The same would likely apply to the families of migrants from Zimbabwe, Angola, Malawi, the Democratic Republic of Congo and other nationalities caught up in the violence.
Less than a week before the discovery of the tattooed man, security guards discovered the mutilated body of Paulo Oficio Nhachale along a path at the same train station. A bloodied rock next to his head and stab wounds indicated how he died.
Nhachale’s brother Fernando would identify him. His brother was at Angelo station on his way home to Meadowlands, Soweto, from a casual job mixing concrete.
Fernando did not know the man with the Lila Romeeo tattoo.
The fate of both cases now hangs in the balance as they get reviewed by the head of detectives at Reiger Park police station. Other than the initial observations and post-mortems, there have been no developments almost a year later.