/ 2 May 1999

AIRMAN’S FAMILY DISTRAUGHT

THE parents of a Zimbabwean airforce officer killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo are outraged that they were given only his kneecap for burial, a newspaper reported on Friday. The Independent quoted the father as saying that he was given a saucer containing what looked like part of a kneecap and told this was his son, 27-year-old Flight Lieutenant Evans Kadyauta. The father, Mike Kadyauta, said the family was told their son died in a plane crash in the DRC, where President Robert Mugabe has sent thousands of troops to support President Laurent Kabila against a rebellion.Zimbabwe Defence Force spokesman Brigadier General Mpandasekwa Munjeri dismissed the family’s allegation as a lie, saying “we are very humane, we never had such a situation.”