Relatives Of Dana Crash Victims Say No To Mass Burial

The possibility of the Lagos State government organizing a mass burial for victims of last Sunday’s Dana airliner crash has been altogether rejected by their families, following a closed-door meeting between Governor Babatunde Fashola and relatives of victims of the crash at the Banquet Hall of the Lagos House, Ikeja, on Sunday.
The 3-hour meeting ended at about 6:25pm with a unanimous decision to constitute a committee to sort out knotty issues on the release of bodies of the victims.
A relative, Mr. Femi Idowu said afterwards that Governor Fashola expressed profound concerns about delay in the release of the remaining bodies, while suggesting mass burial as a quick way out, but no one was favourably disposed to the idea.  Another participant, who simply identified himself as Mr. Johnson Akanbi, confirmed that the proposal for mass burial was rejected at the meeting, stating that all the victims’ relations instead demanded that the bodies of the victims be released.
“Actually, the government proposed mass burial and an inter-denominational funeral service for the victims. It also proposed that the families of the victims can exhume the remains of their relations after the conduct of DNA test and release of the result,” he revealed.
“All families of the victims are not willing to go with the option, especially when a suggestion that the remains of the victims can exhumed after the DNA test result is released. The suggestion was rejected outright.”
He said the families “agreed to wait for the completion of autopsy on the unidentified bodies.”
Speaking to Journalists after the meeting, Gov. Fashola described the conversation as important, as it established a relationship team between the government and families of the victims.
“What we have done is to make details more available to the family so that they know what we are doing, so that they are also able to get a sense of what is next. They agreed with some of the decisions that have been taken,” Fashola said.
“We are pursuing to conduct investigation on the victims so as to identify who is who before we can release the bodies to the various families and they have indicated that as long as the process takes. They have agreed to wait,” he added, saying the families agreed to nominate their representatives into a committee that would continue relating with the government.