Wails, Lamentations As Crash Victims' Families Identify Bodies

LAGOS, June 06, (THEWILL) – Wednesday was one of the saddest days ever in the history of the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja, as hundreds of families of victims of Sunday’s Dana airliner crash thronged its Lekan Ogunsola Memorial House to identify the charred remains of their loved ones.

Those who were successful in the search broke down in tears on seeing what was left of the hale bodies they had been with only days or weeks ago while majority others roamed around fruitlessly in search of the slightest hint of the remains of their people.

Hospital officials said only 43 bodies were identifiable out of the 103 deposited at the Department of Pathology and Forensic Medicine. The others, they explained, were burnt beyond recognition; and only by DNA tests could their relatives identify them.

Speaking with journalists, chief medical director (CMD) of LASUTH, Prof. Wale Oke explained the importance of the DNA tests on the bodies, saying it is the only way of ensuring that families receive the right corpse belonging to them and of preventing litigation from wrong handling of the corpses.

“We will be conducting Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) test, among other tests, as part of the forensic test, requiring the blood of the family members to conduct the test by matching it with the DNA of the dead,” Oke said, assuring that the processes of identifying the bodies would be over within two days.

“The tissues of the dead will be taken and matched with the blood specimen of the family members to ascertain the true relative of each victim. This will help to reduce the confusion of body identification. We need to approach it carefully and professionally because one cannot rule out litigation in its entirety.”

Meanwhile, survivors of the crash, who were admitted to the medical and surgical emergency units, are reported to be responding to treatment in the hands of medical experts.

Also, director, Search and Rescue Operation of the Nigerian Emergency Management Authority (NEMA), Air Com Alex Yemi Bankole, confirmed that a total of 150 bodies were recovered from the crash site. He said five more bodies were retrieved from the building on the last day of rescue works, in addition to other human parts that filled three bags.