Families of south Africans who died in the
Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) collapse
have an indefinite wait for the return of the bodies
– which continue to decompose, the South Africa
government said. “We wish we had (a timeline). We are entirely at the
mercy of the Nigerians,” said government
spokesperson Phumla Williams. She said that the SA government had decided that it
needed to have a frank discussion with the families
about the state the bodies would be in when they
were returned. She said the families were told: “We are appealing
to you that you expect the worst. I don’t think you
want to see your relative in the state that they are
in…The majority of them – I don’t think that they
are looking good”. Earlier the Sunday Independent reported that in
some mortuaries, bodies were being kept cool with
fans and no refrigeration, a claim the Nigerian
government denied. On Friday, it was announced that the post-mortems
of all the 116 victims had been completed. Eighty
South Africans were among those killed when the
multi-storey guest house attached to the
Synagogue Church of All Nations in Lagos collapsed
on 12 September. Williams said that they believed three or four of the
bodies from South Africans killed were in a better
state because they had been embalmed quickly. The government had hoped that the process of
repatriation would move quickly after the post-
mortems. However, this process had been frustrated by the
fact that Nigerian officials had insisted on doing
DNA testing themselves. “They don’t have the technology.” She said that South Africans had hoped “at least to
assist” in the process since. Nevertheless, the government was still waiting to
hear if the bodies had been transported to a service
provider for the testing. “We don’t know when they are going to finish.” She said the government had also learned that
“because of the state in which the bodies are in, the
DNA testing is not going to be a quick process”. This left the government reluctant to estimate a date
for the return of the bodies as it did not want to
create unnecessary expectations. However, Williams asserted that “at any stage; we
[the SA government] are ready to go and fetch (the
bodies)”.

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