After almost a month as number 2070 in a morgue fridge, Simon Mangaliso Radebe will recapture his humanity on Saturday when he is buried at the Roodeport Cemetery in Soweto.
Radebe made headlines after Johannesburg paramedics allegedly refused to take him in their ambulance because he was ”too dirty”and flea-ridden. Radebe died in the Johannesburg city centre where the paramedics had left him.
A security guard, who was one of the last people to see him alive, told the Mail & Guardian that Radebe had been in so much pain that he could not even give his name. Consequently, he died without anyone immediately being able to identify him. Police eventually did so using fingerprints and notified his family, who identified the body on Monday.
According to family spokesperson Dan Makgobola, Radebe was born in Witbank 55 years ago, but moved with his family Soweto, when he was a youngster.
His problems started when he lost his identity book ”many years ago” and was told to go to the Witbank Home Affairs office for a new one. Disheartened by the red tape, Radebe chose to live as a vagrant, said Makgobola.
”When we found him in the streets of Johannesburg, we would take him back home with us, but each time he would stay for a few weeks or a month and then return to the streets,” he said.
Radebe, who was never married, is survived by a grown-up son.