Community gives foreign national a dignified funeral
Lucas Ernesto Tivane's body was found in his rented room three days after his death
IN the midst of horror stories about xenophobia, a Kempton community proved not all South Africans are full of hatred.
A Terenure community came together to give a foreign national, with no known family and who had been living in South Africa for about 30 years, a dignified funeral.
Lucas Ernesto Tivane passed away over a month ago and his body was found in his rented room three days after his death. The cause of his death is still unknown.
The Mozambican national had no relatives in the country, making the community members he lived amongst the closest thing he had to family.
With no immediate family to claim him as their own, his body spent a month at a government mortuary with no signs of funeral arrangements taking place.
“His body was taken to the government mortuary and nothing was done with regards to his funeral arrangements since he has no family. Noticing that nothing was happening, we, the concerned Terenure community members, started to make follow-ups on this matter,” one of the organisers of the funeral said.
The community even made contact with the Mozambique Embassy to try track down his family, but with no success.
“His funeral arrangements were very tough, but with the grace of God and the prayers and help from various people, including Nkosi Funeral Home in Tembisa, Lucas’s employer Nelson, as well as the owner of China Gate in Chloorkop, everything went well.”
Tivane, who spent his days in the country making an honest living for himself at a shop called Everest Café, was peacefully laid to rest at the Waterfall Cemetery in Midrand on April 25.
