Light shed on Polo and bodies in KZN river

The mystery of a white VW polo found submerged in the Msunduzi River in KZN, together with the fate of the car’s occupants, seems to have been solved after police recovered two bodies from the river yesterday.

Initially, police received a report of a teenager who went missing while trying to cross the swollen river.

The family of Lulama Phakathi opened a missing person’s report at the Alexandra Police Station, following the disappearance of the 16-year-old boy last Friday.

While searching for the teenager on Saturday, police divers found a submerged VW Polo with no sign of any occupants.

Yesterday, police found Lulama’s body and during the recovery, found the body of another young man floating face down in the river.

Pietermaritzburg SAPS spokesperson Sergeant Sifiso Gwala says SAPS Search and Rescue has been searching for the missing boy since his family opened the case.

“His body was found floating by the Duzi river near Alexandra Park. He was pulled out of the river by Search and Rescue and identified by his family.

A case was opened at the Alexandra Police Station following this incident. A bystander who was watching and recording SAPS divers searching the river says he was shocked when not one, but two bodies were found.

“I was walking to work this morning [Wednesday] when I saw a crowd gathered by the banks of the river. When I got closer, I saw the SAPS covering a body. It is believed that he [Lulama] had drowned.

“While we were still standing there, another police officer shouted that there was another body that was floating a few metres from the one that was first found. The body looked like that of a grown person, I think he was around 30 years old,” the bystander says.

Police then connected the second body to the VW Polo found in the river over the weekend.

Gwala says there is no link between the vehicle and the missing teenager. He says police have been able to establish some of the circumstances relating to the second body and the submerged vehicle.

According to Gwala, there were four men in the car. The driver lost control of the vehicle and the car ended up in the Dusi river. Three occupants managed to escape but the fourth, believed to be the driver, drowned.

“It was found that these four men were from Hayfields. The three men that survived did not open a case initially because it may have been a case of drunken driving, but now police have opened a culpable homicide case at Alexandra Road Police Station,” says Gwala.