admin
Leroy Dzenga Features Writer
“We have been robbed. So you went to the United Kingdom to die there? Rest In Peace my sister,” the pain in Sharon Sesemane’s Facebook post after the demise of her sister Essy was palpable.
Essy is among a number of Zimbabweans who have lost their lives in the United Kingdom working in the frontline against Covid-19.
The Zimbabwean Embassy in the UK estimates the number of Zimbabweans who have since died in that country from Covid-19 to be around 29.
Most of those who have died were working in the country’s National Health Service (NHS) in various capacities.
A report by the Daily Mail of the United Kingdom says one in every three NHS workers who have been tested for Covid-19 has tested positive.
“16 888 tests carried out on key workers, 5 733 have been positive,” read the report.
Zimbabweans make up part of the statistics and some have succumbed to Covid-19.
Dealing with death has never been easy, but losing a relative to Covid-19 in a foreign land brings a different type of headache.
Rufaro Chandisaita, who lost a cousin in the United Kingdom, said they were shooting in the dark throughout the whole funeral.
“She was alone when she died,” said Rufaro. “With no one to talk to, we were getting updates from nurses.”
After the death, two weeks ago the stress was on ensuring their relative’s remains are handled well in the midst of the chaos that been seen in the UK medical system.
“Bodies are being cremated,” said Rufaro. “It is said that the virus remains active even after death and as such, authorities are not taking chances.
“The best we could do is reach out to a private parlour which cremated her body and stored her ashes which we will be able to get once the lockdown is eased.”
With morgues running out of space, cremation has been the fate of most Covid-19 corpses.
Besides worries about space to preserve bodies, the logistics of flying a body 8 000 kilometres to Zimbabwe when the world is under a lockdown are taxing.
Broadcaster Zandile Ndlovu, who lost her cousin Felicity Siyachitema in the UK earlier this week, said even for those who are back home, the age-old funeral to put closure and ease pressure on the bereaved has been impossible.
Under the current lockdown, gatherings are not allowed and besides the legal requirement, assembly is seen as risky.
“We could not even come together as a family to console each other. Up to now, I have not gone to commiserate with my grandmother and other family elders,” Ndlovu said.
She described her late cousin as a unifier and said the way she departed was divorced from the manner she lived her life.
“Every time there was a funeral or a problem back home, Felicity would help and now that it is our turn to give her a befitting send-off, the situation does not allow,” said Ndlovu.
“We are all mourning in our respective homes, not sure if this will not affect our mental health.”
Psychologist Tinashe Arnold Mutemeri describes these distant funerals as incomplete mourning processes.
“When a person dies, social groups have developed distinct mourning procedures ranging from all night vigils, different burial practices and after-burial ceremonies such as manyaradzo, kurova makuva, kunobvunzira kun’anga (also known as gata) in our Shona culture,” Mutemeri said.
“A person dies far from home, their body does not return and families cannot gather to help each other mourn. When a person dies in a far away place and relatives and friends fail to give the relative a send-off in accordance to their belief system, it then creates a problem.
“They will feel that their relative will not pass well into the afterlife without their rituals, this leads to a perpetual feeling of guilt among relatives.
“People grieve differently with some people recovering quickly, while others end up with psychological and psychiatric disorders such as depression and complicated bereavement disorder (when grieving becomes too raw for too long, leading to social and occupational dysfunction).”
With the health sector in the United Kingdom housing many Zimbabweans, there is now a lot of anxiety among those with relatives working there.
A doctor working in the NHS told The Herald that his family had been regularly checking on him since cases started spiking.
“Working in these circumstances is very scary, I will not lie to you,” he said. “However, there is nothing you can do. At least we have the occupations health department with a section for staff who need counselling.”
The concern from back home has brought in a new dynamic for those in the diaspora, they are used to being the ones worrying about relatives back home.
“My family at some point suggested that I come back,” the NHS doctor.
“They have been worried, but I have tried to assure them. The assurances, however, do not work when they read reports about people dying every other day. My mother prays for me over the phone twice a day.” The British Embassy in Zimbabwe could not give specific numbers of Zimbabweans working in the NHS, those affected by Covid-19 or those who have died.
But the Zimbabwean embassy in London last week put the death toll at 29.
“We have been immensely saddened to read reports in the media of a number of health-workers originally from Zimbabwe who have died in the UK of COVID-19,” a British Embassy spokesperson said in response to written questions.
“We express our deepest condolences to their friends and family, both in the UK and in Zimbabwe. NHS workers are doing a brilliant and vital job at the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic and all who live in the UK are grateful to and proud of them.”
Zimbabwe has been among the top exporters of human capital, it has its positives, but in times of a pandemic, there are social costs attached to the standing.
In this case, families burying their loved ones in spirit as their bodies are reduced to ashes in countries far away.
Only a lucky few are able to get their loved ones` bodies, the rest will at best get ashes.
Having relatives in the diaspora at the moment bears a cruel resemblance with a war where families are not sure if their loved ones will return.
Online Reporter