Khipha Chonco’s final send-off with dignity.
Image: Supplied
AFTER being rejected by his son due to years of neglect, a father receives a dignified burial in Pietermaritzburg, thanks to the intervention of a local funeral service.
Khipha Chonco, who died in the first week of January 2026 at Northdale Hospital in Pietermaritzburg, had been kept until Tuesday, when Sibiya Funeral Services took his body to their mortuary for the preparation of burial.
The funeral service was held at Haniville Hall across Copesville, in Pietermaritzburg.
Zakhele Chonco, 42, who is unemployed, without an identity document, and does not receive any social services assistance from the government, had refused to bury his absent father.
Zakhele Chonco (wearing an orange jacket) walks on the red carpet at Haniville Hall, in Copesville, Pietermaritzburg, where his father’s funeral service was held.
Image: Supplied
Chonco stated that his father neglected him, his mother, and three siblings during their childhood.
“My father has never done anything for me. Even when I asked him to help me secure an ID, he wasn’t willing to. Instead, he helped raise another woman’s child and even helped him get a certificate to work as a security guard.”
He stated that watching others benefit from his father’s support while he, as a son, got nothing, has been painful.
He had initially wanted those who benefited from his father to handle the burial.
Chonco’s main concern was that he couldn’t vote, go to a hospital or clinic properly, or do anything. He survives by growing vegetables.
He thanked Vusi Sibiya, of Sibiya Funeral Services, for his contribution to making the funeral a success, the Home Affairs managers who had enquired about his situation, and promised to assist. He also thanked the media and South Africans for the support they have shown him and everyone who has assisted him.
“Sibiya came to visit my home with people from Home Affairs, and was touched by my situation. He was even shocked that I did not have food in my house because vegetable sales have been slow over the past few weeks. Sibiya bought groceries for my home, and said a person who is struggling to buy food to feed himself cannot be expected to handle funeral expenses,” Chonco said.
Sibiya said he was asked by Cyril Mncwabe, the provincial manager for the Department of Home Affairs in KwaZulu-Natal, to accompany him and Home Affairs Pietermaritzburg office manager, Xolani Maphumulo, to visit the Chonco family.
Sibiya said that Mncwabe and Maphumulo wanted to speak to Chonco and assist him with obtaining an identity document; however, their concern was that the funeral had not been held.
“As a veteran in the funeral sector, I have seen that other people’s pain is not the loss; their pain stems from how they are going to afford funeral expenses, like what they will give to the community members who will come to the funeral and those accompanying them at home during the mourning period. Once the expenses issue has been sorted out, their pain, in some, the anger goes down,” Sibiya said
“All I did was to provide Chonco with the necessary resources to make the funeral a success, and his anger somehow reduced. We ended up agreeing to go together to fetch his father’s body from the government mortuary to Sibiya’s mortuary.
“Now we are having a funeral service, and from here, we are going to the cemetery,” he said.
Sibiya’s contributions included the tomb, a casket, hiring a bus to the cemetery, buying funeral groceries, hiring a tent for catering purposes, and providing a sound system.
“I handled everything related to the burial. I believe that the most important thing is for people to receive a dignified funeral, no matter how poor they are,” Sibiya said.
Councillor Sphamandla Madlala, of Ward 29 in Msunduzi Municipality, availed Haniville Hall free of charge for the funeral service.
Madlala thanked everyone who helped the deceased be buried with dignity.