Zimbabwe MPs to probe Lindela deaths

Zimbabwe MPs to probe Lindela deaths

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By Staff Reporter

THE Parliament of Zimbabwe on Thursday resolved to probe the deaths of Zimbabweans at South Africa’s Lindela Immigration Holding Centre.

The chairman of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Defence and
Home Affairs, retired colonel Claudious Makova confirmed that his committee would soon visit the death trap, but he could not give an exact date.

Makova, the MP for Bikita West added that after probe his team would comply a report to be presented in Parliament.

According to a damning report by South Africa’s Independent Committee of Inquiry 28 Zimbabweans out of 43 migrants died in the holding cells.

When the report came out, South Africa's Home Affairs Minister Mapisa Nqakula said: "This report is indeed a damning report and a real indictment on our work as a department."

The independent inquiry committee was headed by Rev. Otto Mbangula, who is a retired minister of the Methodist Church. It stumbled on the grim picture after it was asked to look at four deaths in detail, including those of two Zimbabweans.

The committee did not give a breakdown on the nationalities of the dead, but it said nine had died in holding cells while another 411 were hospitalised during the same period.

The committee also established that Lindela holding facility was overcrowded, at times with up to 50 inmates sharing a single room designed to hold 30 people, most of the deaths could have been prevented if the medical care facility had enough capacity to deal with cases of people who are sick and that medical staff were poorly trained to deal with the health hazard at the facility.
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