Mystery surrounds death of Jonah Sithole’s son in the UK

By Lance Guma
08 June 2006

The son of the late, legendary musician Jonah Sithole has been found dead in his Birmingham flat in the United Kingdom. 19 year old Tendai Sithole had just been allocated a flat in the area before the tragedy occurred. His mother Gladys Maigurira told Newsreel the police have failed to establish the cause of death. She told us that an inquest had been launched into the death and that at the moment nothing has been found in Tendai’s body to explain the cause of death. No one knows when he died but police discovered his body Saturday.

She says she tried to visit her son’s flat last week Thursday but got lost and she now believes God did not want her to see her son lying on the floor. Maigurira, who was a secretary to Wilf Mbanga at the Community Newspapers in Zimbabwe and the Daily News says they are now waiting for the authorities to issue a death certificate before taking Tendai’s body back to Zimbabwe. Meanwhile the Sithole family was rocked by another tragedy when a sister to Maigurira’s mother collapsed and died at a gathering in Zimbabwe that was mourning Tendai’s death.

Jonah Sithole died in 1997 and left behind Glady’s and his two sons Saul and Tendai. Sithole worked with Chimurenga musician Thomas Mapfumo in the Blacks Unlimited in 1975 and also had stints with bands like Deep Horizon and Acid Band. He was the groups lead guitarist before leaving to make a name for himself as a solo artist.