These draconian measures follow the last spate of deadly accidents reported in South African roads involving Mozambican taxi-minibuses, says the director for legal and consular affairs with the Mozambique's Foreign Ministry, Feira Junqueiro Manhique, cited on the website of the weekly "O Pais", on Monday.
No dates for the enforcement of night ban have yet been set, but it is virtually confirmed, said Manhique.
The last accident was reported on the border town of Komatiport on 18 August, when a taxi-minibus, travelling from Johannesburg to Maputo collided with an incoming truck, killing 22 people.
According to the Mozambican Consul in Nelspruit, Artur Verissimo, cited by 'Noticias', the mini-bus caught fire after hitting with the truck, burning the passengers' bodies beyond recognition. .
At the time, Verissimo said that the South African Health, and the Transports and Communications authorities, were busy trying to identify the victims, but that was a difficult task because of the state of the bodies. Also, their identification papers were found to be useless because most of the passengers were living illegally in that country under false names.
Faced with this situation, the South African authorities had to resort to post-mortem exams to identify the victims.
Verissimo said that the accident might have been caused by excess of speed on the part of the taxi mini-bus driver, who is thought to have been driving under the influence of alcohol.
Current estimates show that at least 200 people travel daily to South Africa on taxi-minibuses.
Meanwhile, the bodies of the 22 Mozambican nationals who lost their lives during this last road accident are reported to be still in South Africa.
Earlier last week, Manhique had assured that bodies of the victims would be repatriated to Mozambique on Friday, but this failed to happen because the much-expected support from the South African authorities did not materialize.
The Mozambican Consulate to South Africa claims that it has no budget to cover the costs of repatriation. Now the ball is on the Mozambican side that has to mobilize the funds to repatriate the bodies of the victims.
According to Manhique, the number of missing people, suspect by their relatives to have been victims of that accident, has risen from three to 14, but the major problem is the identification of the bodies.
SOURCE: AIM
