Busisiwe Mvimbani has at last located the remains of her daughter, who went missing in 2022, in Willowvale, Eastern Cape.
Mvimbani and the remains stored at Butterworth mortuary were positively matched by a DNA test conducted on Monday.
According to an article published in Sunday World in January, Mvimbani claimed that the Eastern Cape’s health and forensic departments had exchanged her daughter’s remains.
In a video that went viral, she stated that she wanted to highlight the cruelty and inadequacies of the two departments.
This came after she started looking for her daughter in April 2022 after she vanished. Then she heard rumours that a body had been found in the eShixini, a nearby river.
Distraught mother pleased with results
That body has now been verified to be a 99.9% match for Mvimbani, according to the health department in the province.
After being taken to the mortuary to view the body and verify that it was indeed her daughter’s remains, Mvimbani said she was pleased with the result.
“The results are back, and I was taken to the mortuary to see the body, and I can confirm that it is my daughter’s,” she said.
“There are some parts that I saw, and I immediately knew that it was her.”
She added that her daughter will be buried on Saturday and that the search was drawn out and tiresome.
Missing person’s case filed in 2022
The body was recovered in eShixini by forensic experts on April 25, 2022, and was marked as unidentified. The next day, an autopsy was conducted under file DR270/2022.
Mvimbani filed a missing person’s case in November 2022, and mortuary employees were instructed to tidy up the mortuary so she could check for her child’s body.
“The mortuary had a total of 57 bodies, and through a selection process based on age and gender, the bodies were narrowed down to two females that could possibly be Mvimbani’s daughter,” the department said in a statement.
“DNA samples were taken from the bodies and herself, and one was a positive match.”
The department added that Mvimbani had been going to counselling before the results were made public.
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