KwaZulu-Natal police say they are still waiting for DNA results to confirm if the body that was found at the Nsuze area north of Durban earlier this week, belongs to 17-year-old Mmeli Ngcobo.
It is believed that Ngcobo went missing in February and was last seen getting into a car outside his school.
Earlier on Friday, a woman believed to Ngcobo’s mother, burnt tyres outside Durban’s UNISA campus disrupting traffic, over her alleged unhappiness with how the investigation is progressing.
KwaZulu-Natal police spokesperson Thembeka Mbhele says police have updated the Ngcobo family and taken their DNA samples to be tested against the body that was found.
She says police will only release the body once DNA results have confirmed it belongs to the missing boy.
A 20-year-old suspect has appeared in court for kidnapping and has been released on bail.
“The police are still waiting for the DNA results from the forensic laboratory the samples were taken from one of the relatives of Mmeli Ngcobo who was reported missing, the was a body that was found at Msunduzi area which was burnt beyond recognition and one of the family claimed that the body belongs to Mmeli Ngcobo. However, as the police since the body was burnt we had to do the DNA test to make sure that we are releasing the body to the right people. For now it is not confirmed that the body belongs to Mmeli Ngcobo until we receive DNA results,” says Mbhele.
SAPS forensics gets more budget for DNA testing backlogs
Police say they have an additional budget to prioritise DNA processing. Several families in KwaZulu-Natal say they have been unable to bury their relatives because of backlogs at the SAPS forensic laboratory.
National police spokesperson Brenda Muridili says, ” It’s over 100 000 cases with backlog. Then we received an additional R250 million which was allocated to our baseline budget to prioritise DNA processing, including the NPA priority cases. And we have also allocated dedicated overtime of R18,5 million which was allocated for the forensic laboratory for processing the DNA backlog as well as manual track and trace of exhibits.”
