Five years later, 14 Mozambican nationals corpses have not been collected from the Raleigh Fitkin Memorial (RFM) Hospital.
This newspaper understands that the deceased Mozambicans did not have documents such as national identity cards (IDs), birth certificates and passports, amongst others, affirming their nationality.
Thus the Mozambican government is reportedly sceptical in having them buried in that country as there is no proof that they are indeed Mozambicans. President of the Mozambican Association in Eswatini Domingo Thomo said most of the corpses belonged to Mozambicans who migrated to Eswatini without having the personal documents.
He said some of them were born in the country, once settled in the kingdom, they remained stateless, as they did not have any national identity documents.
Upon death, they could not be buried in the country since they were not Emaswati citizens.
He said when they attempted to bury them in Mozambique as an association, their government did not permit such as the deceased did not have national documents.
“Some of these Mozambican nationals lived with us, we know that they are Mozambicans, but if we try to vouch for them to the Mozambican government that indeed they are citizens of the country, the government would hear none of it, stating that without the national identity documents, there was no proof that they were native citizens of that country,” he said.
He added that they had organised a delegation from the Mozambican ministry of interior (home affairs) which would arrive in the country to register Mozambican nationals.
The registration has been scheduled for July 5, at the Mozambique Embassy in Eswatini in Mbabane.
He said through the exercise, the delegation would assist the Mozambican nationals to register for documents such as national identity cards (IDs) passports and birth certificates.
“We urge all Mozambican nationals who do not have national identity documents to show up in their numbers on July 5 at the Mozambican Embassy to register,” he said.
RFM Chief Executive Officer Mazwi Mavuso did not deny nor confirm the number of Mozambican corpses that have not been collected at RFM, but asked to confirm same and then revert to this newspaper.
