Father’s heartbreaking 15-month search for baby’s body after Marshalltown fire

Mike Ngulube, Memory (his baby daughter) and his wife, Joyce Banda. Memory and Joyce died in the Marshalltown building fire on 31 August 2023. Photos supplied

• The Marshalltown Fire Justice campaign says bodies have been mixed up after the August 2023 blaze that killed 76 people.
• The body of Memory, Mike Ngulube’s baby, was released by the mortuary to another family under a different name.
• Despite multiple meetings with officials, government has failed to share the location of the grave.

As 2024 draws to an end, Mike Ngulube is losing hope of ever recovering his child’s body. Ngulube lived through the inferno at Marshalltown’s Usindiso building in August 2023. He lost Joyce Banda, his wife, and Memory, their baby, in the fire that took the lives of 76 people and left many injured and homeless.

Joyce’s body was taken to Malawi for burial, but Memory’s body is still missing. What hurts Ngulube most is that his baby’s body was released by the mortuary to another family for burial under a different name. Ever since, he has been trying to find her and her grave.

“It breaks my heart,” said Ngulube.

GroundUp previously reported on Ngulube’s desperate search for his baby’s body.

According to the Marshalltown Fire Justice campaign, a lot of bodies were mixed up.

Nomzamo Zondo, executive director of the Socio-Economic Rights Institute (SERI), which assisted Ngulube to set up and facilitated meetings, said they have held three meetings with various officials, from the provincial health department and its forensic services, the Malawian consulate and SAPS.

At the last meeting, they were told that the person who had collected Memory’s body was acting for the Lackson family, who had identified the body through a photograph. They were also told that this family was Muslim and had buried Memory the same day at Avalon Cemetery, Zondo said.

At the meeting, forensics services officials had taken responsibility for obtaining the grave number, she said. Thereafter, either the grave marker would be appropriately changed to Memory’s name or the body would be exhumed for burial in Malawi, Zondo said. This was to be done in consultation with the Lacksons. Ngulube would have to bear the exhumation cost.

“When I heard that the person who took my baby’s body had been identified, I was hopeful that I would finally be able to find closure,” said Ngulube.

He has a signed affidavit from the Gauteng Department of Health giving the name of the man who claimed Memory’s body.

The man who claimed the body has been contacted and asked for a meeting with the officials and Ngulube, but he did not commit to the meeting. Since then he has not been answering calls or getting back to the officials, Zondo said.

Neither has the Lackson family been located. As a result, a meeting that was set to be held in October to make arrangements for the location of the grave to be revealed did not proceed.

Zondo said the health department claimed to have the grave number of where Memory was buried, but had not revealed it.

She said the family which buried the body would have to be served in a court application to exhume the body.

Ngulube is still waiting for records of the family’s whereabouts.

“The latest developments have left me even more confused than I was before,” says Ngulube. He said he has almost given up hope of ever recovering the child’s body.

He says the Department of Health promised to show him where Memory was buried, but it has not done so. He still hopes to find the grave so that he can visit her.

The health department has not responded to GroundUp as to why it has not shared the grave’s location.

Ngulube said he should not have to bear the costs of exhumation as he was not responsible for the debacle. DNA should have been taken to verify the identity of the person who took the body, he said. Further, the mortuary papers had shown that the man who took Memory’s body had been looking for a four-year-old child, not a baby.

Ngulube said he had paid the funeral company R22,000 for the repatriation of Memory’s body when he made the arrangements for Joyce.

He believes the Department of Health has a case to answer and it is now stonewalling him. Should the department fail to take full responsibility and make amends, he says, he will sue the department.

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