Rescue workers watch as an excavator removes rubble at the site of a
collapsed building at the TB Joshua Synagogue Church of All Nations in
Lagos on Wednesday. Picture: REUTERS
A GROUP of 10 experts has been dispatched to Nigeria to evaluate the needs of South African citizens who may have been involved in the collapse of faith healer TB Joshua’s Synagogue Church of Nations building last week, says International Relations and Co-operation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane.
Addressing a media briefing at Parliament on Wednesday night, she said the group would include doctors who would be able to sign death certificates and see if those South Africans who were in hospital were receiving adequate treatment.
She said this was standard practice by the government and was being done on its own initiative.
Ms Nkoana-Mashabane said the South African consul-general in Lagos had been gathering information and keeping the government updated on the latest news. "This is the largest number of South Africans ever killed in a tragedy in a foreign nation," she said.
SA’s consul-general in Lagos has been working around the clock, visiting the scene, liaising with the leadership of the church and other authorities. In addition, the South African High Commission in the capital, Abuja, has seconded staff to Lagos to provide assistance to the consul-general.
"I am also able to confirm that an advance team of disaster management personnel is on the way to Lagos. In Pretoria, an inter-departmental team has been put together to co-ordinate all government activities relating to the calamity."
Ms Nkoana-Mashabane repeated President Jacob Zuma’s statement made on Tuesday that 67 South Africans had been killed in the building’s collapse. However, this appears to conflict with the Nigerian national emergency management agency’s claim that a total of 70 people had been killed and 131 rescued.
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