{"id":257103,"date":"2023-04-11T21:34:03","date_gmt":"2023-04-11T19:34:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/a-year-after-the-tragic-kzn-floods-the-gumbi-family-say-their-three-missing-children-are-yet-to-be-declared-dead\/"},"modified":"2023-04-11T21:34:03","modified_gmt":"2023-04-11T19:34:03","slug":"a-year-after-the-floods-the-gumbi-family-are-still-hoping-to-find-the-bodies-of-their-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/a-year-after-the-floods-the-gumbi-family-are-still-hoping-to-find-the-bodies-of-their-children\/","title":{"rendered":"A year after the floods, the Gumbi family are still hoping to find the bodies of their children"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_body\">\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/Unknown%20photographer\/missing_people.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/a-year-after-the-floods-the-gumbi-family-are-still-hoping-to-find-the-bodies-of-their-children.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Asanda Gumbi, age 14 (left) with eight-year-old Lubanzi (centre) and Sindokuhle, 14, (right) have been missing since the home they were sleeping in was washed away by severe floods in Durban on 11 April 2022. The family say they cannot get closure as the children are yet to be officially declared dead by authorities. Photo: Supplied by family<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Today marks a year since the devastating floods across KwaZulu-Natal claimed the lives of over 400 people, with many people still missing.<\/li>\n<li>The Gumbi family lost three children, two aged 14 and one eight-year-old, in the floods.<\/li>\n<li>The family say they are not able to get closure because the bodies have not been found and the children have not yet been declared dead.<\/li>\n<li>KwaZulu-Natal police confirmed that the investigation into the missing flood victims is still ongoing.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It\u2019s been a year since torrential rain <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/thousands-destitute-people-are-living-community-halls-yet-another-storm-expected-hit-parts-kzn-weekend\/\">wreaked havoc<\/a> across most parts of KwaZulu-Natal, claiming the lives of at least 435 people, with many people still missing. The flooding had a devastating impact for thousands as many homes and infrastructures were completely destroyed.<\/p>\n<p>For the Gumbi family from KwaNgcolosi in Durban, who lost three young children, the tragedy of the floods is still very present. For days after the children disappeared, the family say, they used their bare hands to dig through the mud near the home, hoping to find the children\u2019s bodies in the debris.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"leave\" height=\"1\" id=\"gu_counter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/a-year-after-the-floods-the-gumbi-family-are-still-hoping-to-find-the-bodies-of-their-children.gif\" width=\"1\"><\/p>\n<p>Cousins Slindokuhle and Asanda both aged 14, and eight-year-old Lubanzi have been missing since 11 April 2022, when the family home was washed away. The three children and two adult relatives were inside the house at the time.<\/p>\n<p>The two women who were with the children, Mano and Mandisa, were rescued a few metres from where the house had been. They were both seriously injured and were treated in hospital for a few months thereafter.<\/p>\n<p>Mano Gumbi is 8-year-old Lubanzi\u2019s grandmother and aunt to the two teenage cousins. \u201cIt still feels like a dream,\u201d Mano told GroundUp. She said she still feels guilty that she was not able to protect them. \u201cI will only be at peace when the children\u2019s remains are found,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Mano said she still has nowhere to live. She has been staying with different relatives in uMlazi until she is able to find a new home.<\/p>\n<p>Asanda\u2019s mother, Bongi Cele, explained how she had only found out a day later that the children were missing. \u201cThere was nothing but a big pipe where the house used to be. We\u2019ve tried everything to find the children but with no luck.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Cele said her only wish now is to to find her daughter in order to give her a dignified burial. \u201cAsanda would have turned 15 this year and be in Grade 9. She was a happy soul. She loved to laugh and loved people. I let her live with her father\u2019s family. Her father passed away when she was young and she wanted to live with them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Family spokesperson Kwanele Gumbi said that they are yet to heal from the tragedy. Even though it\u2019s a year later, the family have not been able to hold a proper memorial for the children who have not yet been declared deceased, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is hard to find closure when you haven\u2019t seen their remains. We have accepted that they are gone, but are still hopeful to at least find their bones and give them a fitting funeral.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gumbi said another concern is that there has not been any feedback from authorities on the search for the children\u2019s remains. \u201cIt has been a year, but no one has bothered to tell us whether the search continues, or if the children are going to be declared dead since they haven\u2019t been found,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>He said the family had viewed hundreds of bodies at the mortuary in the hopes of finding the children. \u201cIt was such a traumatic experience for the mothers. They visited different mortuaries to identify bodies, give DNA samples, and they saw over 1,000 bodies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe just need to know what the legal requirements are to have someone declared deceased? This process needs to be done quickly to give us closure as the family,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Our questions to the Premier\u2019s office were redirected to the police.<\/p>\n<p>KwaZulu-Natal police spokesperson Robert Netshiunda said that the investigation into the missing flood victims is ongoing. \u201cAs long as there are still people who are unaccounted for, investigating police will keep looking. If new clues emerge, a multi-disciplinary search will still be employed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"article_copyright\">\n<p>\u00a9 2023 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\" rel=\"license\">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.<\/p>\n<p>We put an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. All analytics tools are solely on our servers. We do not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We do not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, <b>not tracking<\/b> users. If you republish, please do not delete the invisible pixel.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/a-year-after-the-floods-the-gumbi-family-are-still-hoping-to-find-the-bodies-of-their-children.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Asanda Gumbi, age 14 (left) with eight-year-old Lubanzi (centre) and Sindokuhle, 14, (right) have been missing since the home they were sleeping in was washed away by severe floods in Durban on 11 April 2022. The family say they cannot get closure as the children are yet to be officially declared dead by authorities. Photo: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":257104,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928,3247],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-257103","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"category-news","9":"tag-groundup","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/a-year-after-the-floods-the-gumbi-family-are-still-hoping-to-find-the-bodies-of-their-children.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}