PROGRESSIVE FORCES OF SOUTH AFRICA WANT LUNGU TO BE BURIED IN ZAMBIA AND NOT IN SA

The Progressive Forces of South Africa organisation wants the body of the late Zambian President Edgar Lungu to be buried in his homeland of Zambia and not in South Africa.

The organisation attended the Pretoria High Court hearing on Thursday to show its support for the Zambian government and the SAPS, both of whom want Lungu’s body to be repatriated to Zambia for a state funeral.

“We are here to picket outside the court to show support for the Zambian government and the SAPS, and we are pleased that an out-of-court settlement has been reached by the Lungu family and the Zambian government, whereby Lungu’s body will be kept at a neutral place pending the outcome of the Supreme Court of Appeal hearing regarding where the body shall be buried,” said Progressive Forces of South Africa National Organiser Bonang Sepolwane.

“I would like to ask the Lungu family to let Edgar Lungu to rest in peace in Zambia as it has been a year now since he died, and we are saying the people of Zambia must be given an opportunity to bury their own leader in their own country as he has served them for many years as the country’s president,” she said.

Be that as it may, the Lungu family Spokesperson Makebi Zulu told Tshwane Talks that the movement of Lungu’s body from Two Mountains Funeral parlour to the government’s forensic pathology services was illegal and that the agreement between the Lungu family and the Zambian government will give the family access to the body and that any other person or institution seeking access to the body for whatever reason will have to make an application to the court and notify the Lungu family in this regard.

Zulu bemoaned the fact that Lungu’s body was taken to the government’s forensic pathology services by both the SAPS and the Zambian government under the pretext that it was going to be examined for possible poisoning as stated by Lungu’s daughter Tasila Lungu Mwansa.

Zulu insisted that this is a lie fabricated by the Zambian government and the SAPS to get hold of the body for nefarious reasons.

She pointed out that the Zambian government couldn’t produce proof that Tasila Lungu Mwansa had actually alleged that her father had been poisoned.

He said the family was not notified about the post mortem that was conducted on Lungu’s body.

He revealed that the Lungu family has spent lots of money and has been anguished by the court battle to bury their father where they as the family wish to bury him.

“The courts of law and the Zambian government are in actual fact not supposed to determine as to where former President Edgar Lungu must be buried because we opine that this is the prerogative of the Lungu family, who are his next of kin, and are entitled to give him a dignified burial,” said Zulu.

On Thursday the Pretoria High Court ordered that Lungu’s body be kept at the AVBOB funeral parlour pending the outcome of the Supreme Court of Appeal hearing regarding where Lungu will eventually be buried.

If AVBOB doesn’t want to carry the responsibility of storing the body at its facilities then an alternative parlour shall be identified.

The ex parte court ruling of 22 April 2026 had stopped the SAPS and the Zambian government from repatriating Lungu’s body to Zambia for burial.

President Edgar Lungu passed away on 5 June 2026 in Pretoria at the age of 68 and his family has ever since been embroiled in a bitter row with the government of Zambia regarding his final resting place.

The Zambian government insists it has the right to bury Lungu and give him a state funeral whereas the Lungu family is of the opinion that Lungu actually disliked the current government and President of Zambia at the time of his death and that he wouldn’t want to be buried by people that he detested as they had persecuted him when he was still alive.