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'I HAVE NEVER SEEN ANYTHING LIKE IT'

BAFFLED: Police inspect the Kaapsehoop cemetery after 10 graves were vandalised. Excavations by anthropologists have shown that bones were taken after coffins were opened. 28/04/2009. Pic. Alfred Moselakgomo. © Sowetan.
BAFFLED: Police inspect the Kaapsehoop cemetery after 10 graves were vandalised. Excavations by anthropologists have shown that bones were taken after coffins were opened. 28/04/2009. Pic. Alfred Moselakgomo. © Sowetan.

Alfred Moselakgomo

Alfred Moselakgomo

Humans bones were stolen from graves in a Mpumalanga cemetery after vandals broke open the coffins of the dead people.

The community of the sleepy town of Kaapsehoop, near Ngodwana, was yesterday baffled and shocked by the vandalism of 10 graves in their area.

It has also been established that human bones in the graves were missing.

Police said the motive for the crime was still a mystery, but promised to leave no stone unturned to arrest the perpetrators.

The discovery was made last week by a resident who informed the police, but it is not clear how long the graves had been dug out.

Police spokesperson Ngwako Kgofelo told Sowetan yesterday that only small bones and clothing were left behind by the grave robbers.

The stolen bones included skulls.

"We are baffled," said Kgofelo. "What kind of a person does such a thing?" he asked.

Kgofelo said excavations done by the anthropology forensics unit of Pretoria University revealed that bones were removed from the coffins.

"The vandals left only smaller bones which they probably did not see," he said.

Kgofelo said no one had been arrested and that police investigations were continuing.

"In all my eight years as a policeman I have never seen anything like this," added Kgofelo.

Family members of the deceased whose final resting places were vandalised have collected the remains of their loved ones and reburied them.

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