Pretoria - Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa is scheduled to address a formal ceremony on Sunday after the arrival of the remains of 74 people killed in the Nigeria building collapse.
The event's programme indicated that proceedings at the Waterkloof air force base on Sunday would start with the playing of the national anthem at 3pm, followed by welcoming remarks by Minister in the Presidency Jeff Radebe - the programme director.
Ramaphosa would deliver the keynote address and afterwards, the names of the deceased would be read out by director-general in the presidency Cassius Lubisi.
The event was scheduled to end before 4pm.
After the ceremony, the bodies would be transferred to various provincial mortuaries before private funerals were arranged.
After the plane carrying the remains landed earlier on Sunday morning, Radebe told the SABC that the repatriation was traumatic, especially for the families of the 11 victims whose remains were still in Nigeria.
“But 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,” he said.
“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.”
A total of 116 people - 81 of them South African, three Zimbabwean and one a Congolese national using South African travel papers - died on September 12 when a guest house belonging to the Synagogue Church Of All Nations in Lagos, headed by preacher TB Joshua, collapsed.
Twenty-six injured South Africans returned a month ago. Twenty of them have since been discharged from hospitals and reunited with their families. - Sapa