The Government has started processing death certificates for Cyclone Idai victims, with at least 100 families having received the documents following a legal process to declare them dead.
Attorney General, Virginia Mabhiza, who was in Mutare on Wednesday, told The Manica Post that a class action has started and some families in Chimanimani have since been issued with their relatives’ death certificates.
A class action lawsuit is one person or a small group of people suing on behalf of a larger group of people who have all suffered the same injury.
In the aftermath of Cyclone Idai, the legal process aimed to have the courts declare the 279 people who went missing during the March 2019 tropical storm as legally deceased.
Mabhiza, as the Attorney-General, initiated the process as part of her constitutional mandate to defend the public interest.
Cyclone Idai hit the southeastern parts of the country on March 14, 2019, with Chimanimani being the hardest-hit district. Said Mabiza:
I have always highlighted Mutare as a typical case of my maiden appearance as the Attorney General where we assisted people affected by Cyclone Idai. That is part of the public interest which my office is largely concerned and seized with.
We have assisted people affected by Cyclone Idai. We filed all the cases of the persons affected by Cyclone Idai at the Mutare office. We won our applications, and we are helping them.
We wanted them to be able to access documentation that include death certificates, and for some, it was for NSSA purposes where people wanted to process the deceased’s estates and so forth.
We are proud to say that we successfully assisted the people of Chimanimani to get those documents.
Even though I may not have the exact number, I think more than 100 families have so far received the relevant paperwork, while others are still at different stages of the process.
This means that all 279 victims of Cyclone Idai listed as missing have now been declared legally dead by the High Court in Mutare in an unopposed class action.
Under ordinary law, a relative of a person missing can approach the courts after five years to have that person declared legally dead.
In the case of the Cyclone Idai victims, Mabhiza facilitated the class action so that the families, many of whom are less privileged, could have the declaration made without paying legal costs.
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Tatenda Mapungwana, who was aged 14 when both his parents and his three siblings were swept away from Kopa Madhomeni Residence Camp, said:
I have not been able to access my parents’ death certificates that would allow me to derive benefits from whatever was in their name.
Both of my parents were teachers, so the production of death certificates will assist me in getting what they worked for.
About 340 people were confirmed dead, but not all bodies were recovered in Zimbabwe or Mozambique, where some are believed to have been washed away.
In the end, the police still have 279 people listed as missing, with no hope of ever finding their remains.
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