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Nokwazi Nkomo

Nqobile Tshili, Chronicle Correspondent
THE identity of a teenager who was allegedly murdered and dumped in Bulawayo’s Iminyela suburb remains a mystery as DNA tests have confirmed that the body does not belong to a girl whose family was claiming it.

Despite the family of Nokwazi Nkomo (17) coming out of a mortuary crying with her father, Mr Thulani Nkomo, saying the body belonged to his daughter who had been missing for weeks, the teenager is now back home.

Three families had been claiming the body of a girl who is suspected to have been murdered. Mr Nkomo last week said he was “100 percent” positive that the murdered girl was his daughter.

DNA tests had to be conducted.

Nokwazi’s family paid $200 to the National University of Science and Technology’s Applied Genetic Testing Centre (AGTC) DNA laboratory to establish if the body was of their missing child when two other families also claimed the same body.

Her mother provided some samples for DNA profiling, but before the DNA results were released the missing girl came back home having been away since May 19.

When The Chronicle news crew arrived at the family’s home, Nokwazi was sweeping the yard before alerting her parents that there were some visitors.

Mr Nkomo yesterday said his family was relieved that their daughter was alive and back home but did not specify when she returned.

“She came back. But we are yet to sit down as a family to discuss the issue. Generally we are happy that she is still alive. We haven’t asked her where she has been. We don’t want to scare her away,” said Mr Nkomo.

Last week, he said he was convinced that his daughter was the one who had been killed.

“I’m 100 percent sure that it’s my daughter. She had a mark on her left leg, that’s how I managed to identify her. But we were told that two more families are also claiming the body. So we have to go for DNA testing for positive identification of the body. Facially, the body is unrecognisable,” he told The Chronicle last week.

In last week’s interview, Mr Nkomo’s wife Thembelani said she had little hope that her daughter could be still alive.

“My husband broke down in tears after being showed the body at the United Bulawayo Hospitals as he believed that he has seen our daughter’s body,” she said.

Nust’s AGTC chairperson Mr Zephaniah Dhlamini yesterday said it made sense that the child did not belong to the Nkomo family as tests did not a match with her mother.

He said before learning that Nokwazi had been found, they were about to dispatch a team to request for more personal items to match with her body.

“We were getting stressed because they told us that they had some matching items but the tests were not matching. We were wondering whether the person they brought as her mother wasn’t the mother. We were about to write a despatch to inform them that they should bring her underwear or her toothbrush because we had concluded that it’s not her mother,” he said.

Mr Dhlamini said he will inform the police about their findings and urged others missing their relatives to come forward.

“There is another family but it claims their child is shorter than the one found. I’ve to report back to the police the new developments,” he said.

@nqotshili