Johannesburg - South African forensic experts sent to Nigeria to identify the estimated 84 South Africans killed in the church guest house collapse in Lagos on September 12 have completed their work there and have returned home.
But the identification of the bodies will take a while longer as the forensic scientists still have to analyse the evidence they gathered in Lagos, South Africa’s High Commissioner to Nigeria, Louis Mnguni, said in an interview on Saturday.
Mnguni said SAPS forensic experts, lead by Brigadier Helena Ras, a world-renowned expert in body identification, had left Lagos on Friday while Chief State Pathologist Professor Gert Saaiman and his team left Lagos on Saturday.
The South African experts would analyse the DNA, fingerprint, dental and other evidence they had gathered in Lagos and analyse it in South Africa. This would include comparing DNA samples with those of relatives of the dead in South Africa.
Nigerians pathologists were meanwhile continuing their autopsies in Lagos on the victims of the collapse.
“We’ve done everything from our side here,” Mguni said.
None of the South African dead would be returned to South Africa until all the bodies had been identified, he added. They would be returned home together. Nor would any of the names of the dead be officially released until all had been identified and their next-of-kin informed. He could not say how long this would take though there were other indications that it would take a week.
Meanwhile in Lagos, the Lagos State Government has called on relatives of the dead to contact the State University Teaching Hospital to come to the hospital to identify their family members.
It was not clear if this would include South African relatives who might still be in Lagos.
The Synagogue Church of All Nations of TB Joshua where the accident occurred has meanwhile released new video footage of the collapse of the guest house, still suggesting it was brought down somehow by a mysterious aircraft or more than one aircraft filmed in the vicinity of the building a few minutes before it fell.
An explosives expert who did not want to be identified, dismissed this theory after examining the videos. “I believe the C130 type aircraft and helicopter – on separate flights actually - are nowhere near the building, and certainly don’t fly over it in my view. They appear to me to be on a flight path azimuth, not linear, to the building location - any interrogation of flight plans for those aircraft at those times would, I am sure, verify this.
“Re the building collapse itself. I have worked on the development of Fuel Air Explosives (FAE or FAX) previously. And this involves mainly overpressure to collapse things from above. I don’t see any linkages to that as any detonation event would have been seen above the building itself – and there are other indicators too that are a bit sensitive for here. I therefore subscribe to the view that this was as a result of overbuilding…”
Political Bureau