AFTER two months of court battles, public tension and a suspended state of mourning, the body of former president Edgar Lungu is finally coming home for burial.
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This follows a ruling by the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria, South Africa, which this morning granted the Zambian government permission to repatriate the remains of the late Head of State.
The decision brings to an end a legal deadlock between the State and Lungu’s immediate family, who had blocked efforts to return his body to Zambia for a state funeral, arguing that the late president had wished not to be buried in his homeland, particularly not under the watch of his successor, President Hakainde Hichilema.
But in a ruling delivered this morning, Acting Judge President Aubrey Phago Ledwaba held that the South African court had no jurisdiction to stop a foreign Head of State from attending or presiding over the burial of a former president.
Instead, he ordered that the family be present at the burial and it should accompany the body back to Zambia.
Judge Ledwaba further ordered the funeral home to immediately surrender the body of the former Lungu to the Zambian government.
“The wishes of the family cannot overide that of national interest,” he said.
“It is ordered that the applicant is entitled to repatriate the body of the late former president. The funeral house is ordered to immediately surrender the body to the government of the Republic of Zambia.”
With all necessary permits and documentation already in place, Lungu’s body is now expected to be flown back to Lusaka for burial at the Presidential Memorial site, Embassy Park where Zambia’s other late presidents rest.
The Zambian government, through Attorney General Mulilo Kabesha, sued Lungu’s widow Esther, his sister Bertha, his children Tasila, Chiyeso and Dalitso, nephew Charles Phiri, family spokesperson Makebi Zulu and funeral company Two Mountains Burial Services, demanding the body be returned for a dignified national send off.
But the Lungu family pushed back, insisting on burying him in South Africa and claiming that the former president had left verbal instructions to avoid a state funeral and keep President Hichilema far from his casket.
Esther and her co-respondents argued that Lungu had come to terms with dying in “exile” and that returning to Zambia posthumously would betray his final wishes, particularly given the family’s fears of political persecution back home.
Government, however, maintained there was no credible proof of such instructions and insisted that the dignity of the presidency required that Lungu be laid to rest on Zambian soil, with the honour due to all former leaders.
The legal battle left the nation in mourning limbo.
For two months, Lungu’s body remained in cold storage at a funeral home in South Africa, with no grave dug, no public farewell and no certainty on where or when he would be buried.
On June 25, the family had made plans to bury him quietly in South Africa, but the Zambian government rushed to court and obtained an emergency injunction, freezing the burial and sparking a courtroom saga that gripped the nation.
Today’s ruling brings that saga to a close and sets the stage for Lungu’s long awaited return home.
The former president died on June 5, 2025, at a private clinic in South Africa.
By Melony Chisanga and Catherine Pule in Pretoria, South Africa
Kalemba, August 8, 2025
