Pietermaritzburg family exhumes loved one as people continue to build homes next to graves in Azalea cemetery

DURBAN - A FAMILY in Pietermaritzburg have taken the extraordinary step to exhume and rebury the remains of their loved one after land invaders built houses at the Azalea cemetery.

It is understood that people from the surrounding areas such as Imbali, Ashdown and Willowfontein have been burying their loved ones in the cemetery over the past 30 years.

Thembile Mazibuko, from Imbali unit 13, said her father died in August 1992 and he was buried at the Azalea cemetery.

She said that when they first went to the cemetery, they found that there was someone building a house next to the grave.

When they enquired about it with community leaders, they were told the matter was being resolved.

“As time went by we realised that more people were coming to build houses in the cemetery.

“By my father’s grave there is a finished house maybe 100m away.

“This shocked my family and I,” she said.

She said they decided to go to the municipality to ask for permission to dig up her father’s remains to bury them somewhere else.

“Before we moved to Imbali, we were staying at Maqongqo, but that was before apartheid.

“During the apartheid era, my father moved us to Imbali. Now we have bought a site at Maqongqo and that is where we buried my father’s remains,” Mazibuko said.

She expressed shock at what is happening at the cemetery and said she did not understand how a person could build a house next to graves.

Zuma Sikhanyiso from KwaPata, who has been fighting the matter for several years, said he did not understand why the Msunduzi Municipality was not dealing with it as it started in 2018.

“There was a house being built next to my father’s grave and I was able to stop that from happening.

“The sad thing is that people continue to do as they please in the cemetery by building houses.

“We have been waiting for the municipality to come back to us to say the houses being built there will be demolished,” said Sikhanyiso.

Bernard Mtolo said if he knew how to go about having his wife’s remains removed from the cemetery, he would do it because the situation was getting worse.

Acting spokesperson at Msunduzi Municipality Ntobeko Mkhize said the municipality was aware of the land invasion taking place at Azalea Cemetery.

“The anti-land invasion unit has been demolishing the structures and a legal intervention is being sought to deal with this matter,” she said.

THE MERCURY

• Residents raise concerns over land invasion at PMB’s Azalea Cemetery as houses are built on top of graves

• Msunduzi works to avert cemetery crisis