National
Public Protector can help repatriate SA bodies─── 05:24 Thu, 23 Oct 2014
Pretoria - Public Protector Thuli Madonsela has said she can intervene if families of the victims who died in the Nigerian church disaster need further assistance, the SABC reported on Wednesday.
The public broadcaster said families had requested Madonsela to investigate why it was taking so long to bring the bodies back to South Africa.
Madonsela said she was satisfied with the assistance the SA government had been giving the families so far.
"My observation is ...the government has been doing everything possible to assist the families and to get the Nigerian government to release the bodies.... at some stage the government even sent, or tried to send its own pathologists to expedite the process and that was declined," she said.
"We will find out through this process.. what else is the government doing, and what else would the families appreciate the government to do."
On September 12, 116 people, among them 84 South Africans, were killed in the collapse of a multi-storey guest house attached to the Synagogue Church of all Nations.
The church is run by Nigerian preacher TB Joshua. An inquest into the deaths began in mid-October in Nigeria.
Sapa
