Lungu finally coming home for dignified burial

“In line with the court’s directive, the Government will engage with the former President’s family to finalize burial arrangements. The nation will be informed of the agreed-upon details in due course,” stated Kabesha.

The development comes after a prolonged legal and family-government standoff that has kept Lungu’s body in a foreign morgue for months.

Lungu died at a clinic in South Africa on June 5, last year, a development that initially plunged the country into mourning.

However, the burial process later turned into a protracted dispute after the family made a sudden U-turn on plans to return his body to Zambia on June 17, 2025, despite the South African Defence Force having prepared to mount a guard of honour.

The decision disrupted the national mourning period declared by President Hakainde Hichilema and left many Zambians confused.

In the days that followed, the family announced plans to privately bury Lungu in South Africa on June 25, 2025.

However, on June 24, just a day before the planned burial, Kabesha obtained a court order from the Pretoria High Court stopping the burial, arguing that as a former president, Lungu should be buried in Zambia with the dignity and honour befitting his office.

The court agreed and set August 4, 2025, as the hearing date.

In affidavits filed before the court, Lungu’s widow Esther Lungu and other family members said they did not want the body returned to Zambia, claiming that the former president had made peace with dying in “exile” and did not want President Hichilema anywhere near his body.

According to the family, Lungu felt abandoned by government while he was alive.

Government, however, argued that there was no credible evidence showing that Lungu wanted to be buried outside Zambia or that he did not want his successor present at his funeral.

Through court filings, government further maintained that despite political differences, the presidency must be respected and Lungu, like all former heads of state before him, deserved a state funeral and burial in Zambia.

On August 8, 2025, a full bench of the Pretoria High Court unanimously ruled that Lungu’s remains should be handed over to the Zambian government for repatriation, a state funeral and burial.

But the Lungu family refused to back down and continued the legal battle.

They challenged the ruling by appealing directly to the Constitutional Court of South Africa, arguing that the Pretoria High Court had erred in its judgment.

However, on August 26, 2025, the Constitutional Court dismissed the appeal, saying the family could not appeal directly to it and referred the matter back to the Pretoria High Court.

Following that, on September 16, 2025, the Pretoria High Court, led by Acting Judge President Audrey Ledwaba, dismissed the family’s application for leave to appeal the earlier ruling.

The family then escalated the matter to the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein, which in December granted them leave to appeal against the ruling that ordered the repatriation of Lungu’s body.

However, after failing to file submissions within the set deadlines, the appeal lapsed, paving the way for the Pretoria High to act on the earlier court decision today.

This standoff has made Lungu one of the few former African heads of state to remain unburied for over 10 months after his death.