Covid-19: Body buried at night

Kadoma Correspondent

Nhau has it on good authority that a repatriated body of a person suspected to have died of Covid-19 was recently buried late at night as authorities tighten screws on measures to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus.
A returning body from South Africa, which was supposed to be buried at Rimuka cemetery, arrived in the city after hours and had to be driven straight to its final resting place around 8pm in the evening.
Health authorities reportedly instructed that there would be no body viewing.
“We had a body buried at night recently. The returning deceased was suspected to have died of Covid-19. As such, there was clearance from all authorities, that is health and the police, to have the body taken straight to the cemetery. We had to work under flood lights. Instructions were strict on that one,” said one of the people that took part in the process.
The family of the deceased (identity withheld), could not pay their last respects, as is customary.
“This is devastating. We learnt of the death of our beloved with shock. When we arranged for repatriation of the body we thought we could at least view the body before burial,” said a close relative in an interview.
“What we went through as a family is painful as the instruction was that the body be taken straight to the cemetery without getting home for body viewing, neither was it to lay in state. This pandemic is stabbing and turning the knife in our souls more than we ever imagined.”
A raft of stringent regulations are spelt out both for the dead and the living concerning the pandemic response especially, at funerals in the wake of a more aggressive second-wave of infections and deaths. Nhau/Indaba