A forensic laboratory in Pretoria has been tasked with determining what kind of poison killed 13 members of a KwaZulu-Natal family.

Police spokesperson Captain Vincent Pandarum said on Wednesday that tissue samples had been sent to the laboratory for analysis.

Post mortems were carried out on the bodies by Port Shepstone pathologist Dr Ikram Ali last Wednesday, who found "no anatomical injuries to the bodies".

Pandarum said that once the results were released and the name of the poison revealed — presumably in a few weeks time — the police would try to find out where it was obtained from.

The Mazubane family was found dead in their Dingleton home on the south coast on 21 September after consuming a herbal concoction. Two members of the family survived as they were not at home at the time.

A neighbor — who had gone to borrow a bible from the family — found the bodies in the lounge with blood running from their noses.

Found dead were a two-week-old baby, four boys aged between two and seven, a 17-year-old boy, a 21-year-old man, four women in their 30s and two 55-year-olds.

These were the grandparents, their children and grandchildren. It was suspected that the 17-year-old boy, a trainee traditional healer, administered the deadly concoction during an annual ceremony by the family.

The brother of the trainee healer, David Mazubane (29) said his younger brother started training as a traditional healer when he was 15.

Sapa