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Roselyne Sachiti in PRETORIA, South Africa

Officials from South Africa and Zimbabwe have been engaging in talks aimed at facilitating the exhumation and repatriation of some heroes and struggle stalwarts who lived and died in Zimbabwe.

In an interview with The Herald yesterday, ahead of Vice President Mohadi’s visit here, Zimbabwe’s envoy to South Africa, Ambassador David Hamadziripi said that a delegation from South Africa recently visited Zimbabwe to engage the Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage.

“As we speak, I just received a message from an acting deputy director general in the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture of South Africa.

“He has been in Zimbabwe leading a delegation that has been having discussions with our Ministry of Home Affairs and Cultural Heritage about the programme South Africa is undertaking to exhume and repatriate the remains of some of their heroes and freedom struggle stalwarts who lived and died in Zimbabwe,” said Amb Hamadziripi.

He emphasised that this was important as it represented a pivotal moment in the historically close ties between Zimbabwe and South Africa.

“This is a very important programme for South Africa. This month, those remains are going to be repatriated to South Africa. There is going to be a ceremony to be presided over by the President (Cyril Ramaphosa) to mark the return of those remains,” he revealed.