Joburg funeral parlour owner denies dumping coffins at border post

08 March 2019 - 12:31
By Ernest Mabuza
A Johannesburg funeral parlour owner has denied accusations he dumped three coffins at the Lebombo border post near Mozambique.
Image: Thinkstock A Johannesburg funeral parlour owner has denied accusations he dumped three coffins at the Lebombo border post near Mozambique.

An undertaker in Johannesburg who provided coffins to take three bodies home to Mozambique has denied that his company dumped the coffins at the Lebombo border post.

Three coffins carrying the two men and a woman were dumped by a vehicle transporting them on Saturday at the border post near Komatipoort after relatives of the deceased failed to produce the necessary paperwork to cross the border.

News reports earlier in the week claimed that the Sesamotho Funeral Undertakers had dumped the bodies.

Robert Marks, the owner of Sesamotho Funeral Undertakers, said on Friday that his company provided coffins only to the families, who in turn made their own arrangements to transport them to Mozambique.

"The families had their own transport. They came and loaded the coffins before leaving for Mozambique. It was their own transport they had arranged and not me who dumped the coffins," Marks said on Friday.

Relatives of the deceased were accommodated at Ressano Garcia in Mozambique while the coffins remained in a mortuary in SA while the documentation was completed.

Once the paperwork was finalised on Tuesday the bodies were repatriated to Mozambique, the Lowvelder newspaper reported.