Masvingo - A Zimbabwean family reportedly went through "a horrific experience" after a body which they believed to be that of their relative who died in South Africa was "wrongly" repatriated to Zimbabwe.
According to the Chronicle newspaper, the family allegedly learnt about the "mix-up" as they were transporting the body back to Zimbabwe.
They received a message from a funeral palour in South Africa that there had been a "mix-up" and that they had received a wrong body. The body they had collected allegedly belonged to another Zimbabwean family.
This occurred as the family was already in Rutenga, on their way to Masvingo.
The incident caused delay in the burial of Nyaradzai Ncube, 45.
The late woman's husband, Maxwell Ncube, 53, was quoted as saying: "There was a mix-up of bodies at a funeral parlour in Cape Town, South Africa, after my wife passed on in that country. She had flown there for check-up for breast cancer two weeks back.
"My uncle and relatives who represented us in South Africa were handed the body belonging to the Muchemwa family from Buhera instead of my wife’s body. My uncle did all the modalities to have my wife’s body repatriated to Zimbabwe.
"When he went to the parlour with other relatives, they were stopped from observing the cleaning and dressing of the body," Ncube was quoted as saying.
In 2009, relatives of a Zimbabwean man who had died in a tragic bus accident in Polokwane, South Africa, also repatriated a wrong corpse, All Africa.com reported.
The relatives reportedly received the body of a woman instead of that of their male relative.