South Africans Reportedly Attacking Nigerians Over Synagogue Church Deaths

The Synagogue Church of All Nations guest house collapse and the number of dead South Africans is fuelling anti-Nigerian sentiments in South Africa.

Unconfirmed reports on Monday say some Nigerians were attacked in the aftermath in an area in the outskirts of Johannesburg.

But reacting to this, the South African National Police Commissioner General, Reah Phiyega, told Channels Television’s correspondent, Betty Dibiah, in Pretoria, that she was yet to receive such a report, promising that the agency would investigate the allegations.

“This is no time for finger-pointing but a time for all affected to deal with the disaster as one,” she said.

A South African Minister with the Presidency, Jeff Radebe, had earlier told reporters on Monday that the death toll from the collapsed building had risen to 115, a figure that is contrary to that of the Nigerian government’s emergency management agency, NEMA, which was put at 86.

Giving the figures to reporters at the premises of the building on Saturday, after the building had been levelled, the Director of Search and Rescue, Air Commodore Charles Otegbade, said the figure was arrived at after a reconciliation of statistics presented by all the concerned agencies.

He said that “majority of the dead persons are suspected to be South Africans”, who used the guest house which collapsed on September 12 more.

Radebe, said 84 South Africans, who were part of visiting church groups, had died in the September 12 incident.

He was speaking at an air force base north of Johannesburg where 25 South Africans who were injured returned for treatment.

The founder of the church, TB Joshua on Sunday said he would travel to South Africa in the coming weeks to meet families and survivors of the collapsed building.