Courier readers were baffled to see an abandoned coffin in the bushes at the side of Cornhill Street on Monday morning.
In the early morning hours, by-passers stumbled upon what appeared to be a used coffin with traces of sand inside it. “My colleague and I were heading to work when we saw a coffin in the bushes, which was spooky. More weird was that it still had earth inside,” said a Courier reader who wishes to remain anonymous. He added that the coffin looked like it had been dug up out of the graveyard and placed in the bushes without a corpse inside. “My initial thought was that the body had been removed and that is when we contacted Dundee police and reported the matter.
“This means that even the dead don’t rest in peace here in Dundee, as criminals are now digging up graves and taking out human remains. I just hope that it is not being used for muthi,” said Nhlakanipho Mthembu. He advises that residents should check on their loved ones’ graves to see that they have not been disturbed.
Endumeni Municipality Environmental & Waste Manager Zakhele Mndaweni assured the community that no grave has been dug up and that the coffin was not from the Dundee cemetery.
“The open coffin was found in the bushes. It looks like an old coffin that has been used for other purposes and not for burial,” said Mndaweni. He added that no tombstone has been damaged or new grave dug at the cemetery. “I can assure the community that this incident did not happen at the cemetery. Every grave there is still intact, as well as the tombstones,” said Mndaweni. He concluded by saying that it looks like the coffin was used for other purposes like ‘black magic’.
Dundee SAPS have opened an inquiry docket into the matter and the coffin has been taken to the police station and kept in the stolen property storeroom.
Police urge anyone with information to please contact Dundee SAPS on 034 299 9755.
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