Wooden coffins decorated with floral arrangements in long rows in a tent on a sports field: on Wednesday, hundreds of people in South Africa said goodbye to the 21 young people who died ten days ago in a tavern in a slum under mysterious circumstances.

Claudia Bröll

Political correspondent for Africa based in Cape Town.

  • Follow I follow

Emotional scenes ensued as the coffins were brought into the tent one by one to the chorus.

The pictures of the nine girls and twelve boys were printed on commemorative plaques with the sentence "21 Forever in Our Hearts".

South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa and several ministers also traveled to the funeral service in the Scenery Park district near the city of East London.

The ceremony was webcast and televised.

The tragic event caused great horror in South Africa.

The bodies of the youths were found at the Enyobeni tavern on Sunday morning after a boisterous celebration the night before.

They were lying on tables, chairs and the floor with no visible signs of injury.

The youngest victim was 13 years old.

According to media reports, 17 young people died in the restaurant, four later in the hospital.

Cause of death unknown

To this day there is only speculation about the cause of death, and there is no official explanation even after examining the corpses.

A rapper who performed at the restaurant that night wrote on Twitter that the teenager had suffocated.

"They couldn't breathe because they were stuck in a place with no air supply." According to the tweet, they used pepper spray, some fell to the ground and didn't get up.

There was also speculation in the South African media about a defective generator and carbon monoxide inhalation.

The owner of the pub said he was not present that evening.

Police Minister Bheki Cele, who traveled to Scenery Park the day after the accident, did not provide any information about the cause of death during the funeral service.

“Today we are here to mourn, to say goodbye to our children and to stay behind to pick up the pieces.

There's a lot of shards to pick up," Cele said.

According to media reports, the 19 coffins laid out were empty.

The families had opted for private burials, two families had already buried their deceased.

The incident has sparked debate about cracking down on underage drinking.

In South Africa it is illegal to sell or serve alcohol to anyone under the age of 18.

“We lost our children here.

There are parents who can no longer hug or kiss their son or daughter.

We are losing our future generation to the scourge of underage drinking,” Ramaphosa said in his speech.

According to data from the World Health Organization, South Africa ranks among the ten countries with the highest alcohol consumption in the world.

South Africa's president had previously described the "increasing social acceptance of alcohol consumption by young people" as a serious problem in a letter to the citizens.

The pictures from the party published on the Internet showed exuberant young people with bottles of alcohol in their hands.

Several witnesses reported that alcoholic beverages were served free of charge that evening.

In the letter, Ramaphosa appealed to families and adults to comply with the law.

The police must take stricter action against violations.

In addition, in many poor areas such as Scenery Park there are too few safe recreational facilities for young people.

The Enyobeni Tavern has now been closed.