Another sad chapter for victims and their families in the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) building collapse happened last night, November 15, 2014.
Seventy four corpses of South Africans who died in the tragic September 12 incident were flown home to South Africa from Lagos on chartered planes around midnight of Saturday.
The bodies had been stored at the Mainland Hospital, Yaba and the Isolo General Hospitals, both in Lagos, and had been under the custody of Lagos State government.
A minister in the South African presidency, Mr. Jeff Radebe who led the countries officials on the repatriation process, told newsmen in a briefing that the process of identifying the victims was not yet completed and of the 85 South Africans who died, only 74 have been handed over to their government.
“Of the 85 South Africans, we have received 74 bodies from Lagos State government and would be flown to South Africa at 10:50 pm from the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, MMIA, to arrive at the early hours of Sunday (today). This would be through a chartered plane,” Rabede explained.
“And on arrival at the airport, short ceremony would be organised for the victims and the bodies would be handed over to their relatives. The process of identifying all the 85 victims including the three from Zimbabwe has not ended.”
“The (DNA) test would be conducted to identify others who died in the tragedy,” he explained further. “Of the 26 persons who were injured and repatriated to South Africa, 20 have been discharged after they have been certified okay by our medical experts.”
