Mass burial: #EndSARS coalition demands DNA mapping, compensation

Forum 9 months ago

Mass burial: #EndSARS coalition demands DNA mapping, compensation

A group, the Coalition of #EndSARS Protesters and Supporters, has demanded that the Lagos State Government should conduct a DNA mapping on all the 103 corpses recovered in the wake of the October 2020 #EndSARS protest.

The coalition said the state should conduct the DNA mapping before going ahead with its planned mass burial for the 103 corpses.

The coalition also said the government should compensate families of the victims and “provide therapy for the trauma they have caused their families over the last three years.”

The state government had said in a leaked memo dated July 19 that it would conduct a mass burial for the 103 corpses.

A human rights organisation, Amnesty International, had in a statement on Monday demanded that the Lagos State Government should suspend the planned burial until the identities of the corpses were determined.

The rights group further demanded that the government “must also carry out transparent coroner inquests and autopsies on the 103 #EndSARS victims.”

On Wednesday, the Coalition of #EndSARS Protesters and Supporters similarly demanded that the Lagos State Government should “suspend the planned mass burial of 103 bodies in TOS Funeral Services immediately; implement the recommendations of the judicial panel of inquiry’s White Paper; and establish a one-month notice for citizens to access the 103 bodies, in the hopes of identifying their loved ones.”

The group alleged that the government was trying “to manipulate public perception and evade justice and accountability.”

“The Coalition of #EndSARS Protesters and Supporters, national and globally, are horrified by the planned mass burial of 103 protesters and civilians who tragically lost their lives in the October 2020 state-sponsored violence and murder at the Lekki Tollgate, and the callous and insincere statement by the Lagos State Government in response to the leaked memo approving the contract for the mass burial.

“The Babajide Sanwo-Olu-led Lagos State Government continues to misinform the global community in an attempt to manipulate public perception and evade justice and accountability,” it alleged.

It condemned what it called “government’s attempt to downplay the magnitude of the casualties,” saying it is “a disservice to the memory of those who lost their lives and the pain endured by their families.”

But reacting to the demands to suspend the mass burial, the Chief Press Secretary to Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Gboyega Akosile, who spoke to The PUNCH on Wednesday, said the government would “conform to global best practices” in carrying out the mass burial.

Akosile added that the government would handle the burial responsibly.

“The Lagos State Government has always been very responsible. There is nothing we do in Lagos State under Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu that does not conform to best practices.

“You can be rest assured that when the burial will be done, it will be according to what is globally accepted.

“We conform to the laws of the land. There are laws guiding burial in Lagos State, and you can be rest assured that we’re going to satisfy the law of the land.

“It’s not because an agency, whether international or local, is saying that we should suspend the burial, it is because we ordinarily follow due process in the activities of governance in the state,” Akosile said.