Body
More than eight months after Edgar Lungu died, the former Zambian president’s body remained unburied in South Africa, at the center of a dispute that has spilled from funeral negotiations into the courts and into public debate about spirits, curses and politics.
The dispute has pitted Lungu’s family against President Hakainde Hichilema, who hoped for a state funeral in Lusaka. While Zambia’s authorities moved toward a public burial, Lungu in his last days told family members that Hichilema, even as a mourner, should not go near his body, the Associated Press reported.
A visible sign of the standoff appeared in Lusaka: an unfilled, coffin-size hole in a cemetery where a tomb was prepared for Lungu even though his family’s objections were not yet known. Cemetery caretaker Allen Banda said the spot for the tomb was dug and built quickly, warning that “a tomb without a corpse” is like digging “your own grave,” according to the AP report.
The legal fight has repeatedly produced outcomes siding with Zambia’s authorities over Lungu’s wishes as interpreted by his family. To arrange a state funeral, authorities needed to take custody of Lungu’s remains until burial, but Lungu’s family resisted plans during negotiations over how the funeral should proceed, the AP said.
According to the report, Lungu’s family preferred to transport the corpse by private charter and had hoped to keep it at Lungu’s residence at night. When negotiations appeared unlikely to follow their wishes, the family opted for a private funeral in South Africa—while moving ahead with that ceremony, the report said they learned that Zambian authorities had blocked it.
The standoff became even more public after a South African court ruling in August. The AP reported that the court ruled that Zambian authorities could take Lungu’s body home for burial, and that Bertha Lungu, Lungu’s sister, was inconsolable in the courtroom after the ruling—wailing and cursing at Zambia’s attorney general, Mulilo Kabesha, as he said it was time to take the corpse home and as she asserted that Hichilema wanted the body for ritual purposes.
Outside the courtroom, the dispute has also been described in spiritual terms. Bishop Anthony Kaluba of the Life of Christ congregation in Lusaka told the AP that the situation “has shifted from the physical, it has shifted from politics, and it is now a spiritual battle.” Chammah J. Kaunda, a professor of African Pentecostal theology and academic dean of the Oxford Center for Mission Studies, said on a wider African pattern that last words can function as “a vital force” to enhance life or block it, and described how curses can “acquire a life of their own.”
The Associated Press also reported that some of Hichilema’s supporters interpret Lungu’s will as casting a curse, while they portray a state funeral attended by Hichilema as an act of generosity toward Lungu and his family. Herbert Sinyangwe of WayLife Ministries, speaking in Lusaka, said, “We believe in our culture that curses work,” according to the AP.
Zambia’s dispute also reflects a broader cultural expectation around burial. The AP described the country’s taboo against failing to bury the dead promptly and with dignity, and noted that families and political rivals across Africa may interpret final words as binding forces.
The report framed the burial clash as rooted in long-running rivalry between two presidents who were once political opponents. Lungu rose to power after Michael Sata’s death in 2014, and his main opponent in the election was Hichilema, a wealthy businessman. Their political rivalry intensified over time, including Hichilema’s treason conviction and imprisonment in 2016 after accusations tied to an alleged failure to yield to the presidential motorcade.
After the August ruling, a continuing question remained over how authorities would secure a burial that satisfies both the court process and the family’s understanding of Lungu’s last directive. The result, according to the AP, is that the body remained “frozen in South Africa” while Zambia’s public argument continued—offending some beliefs about the dead while fueling a contested narrative over whether the conflict is political, spiritual, or both.