Synagogue Church Building Collapse: Bring Back 11 Bodies, South Africa Demands

SA Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa

Efforts are now being escalated to ensure that the bodies of 11 people who died in the Synagogue Church of All Nations building collapse are returned to South Africa, that country’s Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa said in Pretoria yesterday.

“We will intensify our efforts to ensure that the bodies still in Nigeria are returned without delay,” he said at a ceremony at the Waterkloof air force base, marking the arrival of the bodies of 74 victims.

“President [Jacob] Zuma has made a commitment that we need to make sure that we leave no stone unturned, and that all 85 must be brought back home.

“But that is dependent on the Nigerian authorities who are responsible for these DNA samples. We are going to work with them to ensure that eventually, [the other victims]… are brought back when it is humanly and scientifically possible,” Minister in the South African Presidency, Jeff Radebe, said.

The sombre-looking families were glued to large television screens fixed near a stage.

The family members arrived in batches, and were ushered to chairs decorated in black cloth.

In the hangar, reporters were separated from the families by a rope.

Soldiers stood by with R5 rifles. Numerous paramedics were also in the room.

The SA Police Service brass band delivered a rendition of the 1862 American civil war song “Battle Cry of Freedom” written by American composer George Frederick Root.

Paramedics rushed towards some family members who began to weep hysterically as director-general in the South Africa Presidency Cassius Lubisi read out the names of the dead.

In this hand photo supplied by the government's Department's of Communications (DoC) one of four Forensic Pathology Services truck carrying the remains of some of the victims of the Nigeria building collapse, exits a chartered plane on its arrival from Nigeria, in Pretoria, South Africa, at the Waterkloof Air Force base Sunday, Nov. 16, 2014. (AP Photo/Department of Communications)

Only 74 of the expected 85 bodies of victims were returned to South Africa – apparently due to DNA sampling that still needed to be done by the Lagos State Government medical team.

It has been nearly two months wait for the bodies of 81 South Africans, three Zimbabweans and one Congolese national using South African travel papers, among the 116 people  – who died in the building, serving as a guest house within the church premises in Ikotun on the outskirt of Lagos.