Pretoria - The government has been urged to work with foreign countries to handle the repatriation of South Africans who die abroad.
Last week, yet another family came out to say it was asking for help to bring home the remains of their loved one – Siphosethu Mqokozo. The family need R300 000 to repatriate her remains after she died in China last week.
The family of the 30-year-old teacher has, following her death on September 22, started a BackaBuddy campaign to raise funds to repatriate her.
Mqokozo, originally from Vaal bank in the Eastern Cape, took up an English teaching post in the City of Yangzhou in the Jiangsu province of China in 2019.
The family said she left the country in October 2019, and even though they had not seen her since, they had been able to use various platforms to continue communicating with her.
Mqokozo had a panic attack and allegedly died on the way to the hospital in China.
The family indicated, following her death, that they had spoken to the South African Embassy and were in talks with her previous employer to check if there was any assistance they could provide.
They were later informed that she did not have insurance to repatriate her body but only had health insurance to go to the hospital.
“We would like to bid farewell to the selfless and resilient mother, daughter, sister and friend, and to see her face one last time before laying her to rest. We cannot mourn or give her rest as we are trying endlessly to contact the relevant people to assist in bringing her back and to raise funds for her burial,” wrote the family on the fund-raising page.
“She went to China for the sole purpose of providing for her family, and she was doing so until her passing. She passed away in an unfamiliar place, far from home. We have tried all avenues of bringing her back; this is our last resort. This is our last hope in ensuring she comes back to us.”
In response, Department of International Relations and Co-operation said it was important for South Africans travelling or living abroad to register with the local embassies.
Departmental spokesperson Clayson Monyela advised citizens to take out travel insurance when going overseas as he stressed that it was not the department’s duty to repatriate South Africans who died abroad.
Monyela said the reason they encouraged this was according to what the consular service’s policy stipulated.
Christopher Afoke Isike, a Professor of African Politics and International Relations in the Department of Political Sciences at the University of Pretoria, said the incident involving Mqokozo was the third time he had heard something like this.
Isike said, despite not having all the details, he believed that for recourse, the South African consular office in China should be paying for these kinds of costs, as that was what they were there for.
“If there are too many South Africans in China, which I doubt, but is a possibility, then they should be encouraged to form SA citizens associations, which can help support members in cases like this. Insurance can also help, if China recognises this.”
Overall, however, Isike said it was important for the South African government to seriously engage the Chinese government about how its citizens were perceived and treated in China, as the last two who died did so under questionable circumstances.
“If that’s the case with this one too, then it doesn’t bode well even for China, as South Africans will become more dissuaded from the adventure of travelling abroad for greener pastures, and this may not necessarily be a good thing for South Africa and countries like China.
“So it’s in the best interest of all parties to sit down and discuss this and put co-operative measures in place to handle cases from a preventive point of view,” he concluded.
Pretoria News