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WIDOW HARASSED AT FUNERAL

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MBABANE – Thobile Hlophe almost missed her husband’s funeral as some of her stepchildren and her sisters-in-law kicked her out of the homestead upon the arrival of Bongani Kunene’s corpse.

Hlophe is the 30-year-old woman of Hholoshini, whose husband committed suicide after the disappearance of their eight-year- old daughter, Phiwayinkhosi Kunene. However, Phiwayinkhosi was found dead with her head removed, a day before her father was laid to rest. Attempts to bar Hlophe from attending her husband’s funeral started at around 5am, shortly after the corpse was brought into the vigil tent, which was pitched a few metres away from Kunene’s other homestead, where he ingested the weevil tablets that led to his demise. Unlike in other funerals where a corpse is brought to the homestead the previous day, Kunene’s corpse was fetched from the mortuary yesterday morning. 
A group of Hlophe’s stepchildren and her sisters in-law blocked the widow as she passed next to Kunene’s house. Hlophe who was in the company of her family members, was on her way to the tent after the arrival of the corpse.
While still shocked about what was happening, the group of women hurled a series of insults and further made startling allegations against Hlophe in relation to the cause of her husband’s death.

One of the women, who was later identified as Kunene’s firstborn daughter from another relationship accused Hlophe of not informing her about the death of her father. The child further accused the Hlophe family of ‘poor funeral arrangements’. “My father cannot be buried like a dog,” said Kunene’s daughter. She was supported by her aunts, who ordered Hlophe to excuse them so that they could bury Kunene in peace. When all this happened, the other aunts were screaming on top of their voices, asking what really killed their brother. The loud noise attracted the over 200 mourners, who eventually left the tent to try and solve the problem. The number of mourners increased to about 300 before they proceeded to the graveyard. Notably, despite all the startling allegations and insults, the widowed woman remained silent, while the residents of area and the community police members moved the troublesome children and their aunts to make way for her.

As Kunene’s daughter and her aunts continued to provoke Hlophe, the elders of the Hlophe family took the widow into a car, which was parked about 60 metres away from the Kunene homestead.  “Let us excuse them until they finish with the burial. We will engage them later so that they can explain why they treat us like dogs. It’s only dogs that react by biting each other instead of solving problems,” said one of the Hlophe elders. He added that he was expecting the Kunene family to tell them where they went wrong so that they could apologise and find an amicable solution as opposed to treating them like dogs. “Tell us if you want to eat Kunene’s corpse so that we can put it on the table,” said the community police members who interjected while the Hlophe elder was addressing members of the family. It appeared that the community police member’s question was directed to the troublemakers.


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