The government is working with grieving families of the eight South Africans killed in a suicide bomb attack in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Tuesday, to repatriate their remains.
The victims have been identified as Captain Brandon Quinn Booth, a 47-year-old pilot from Balgowan in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands; former Durbanite Jeni Margaret Ayris, 46, who held dual South African/British citizenship and was based in Scotland; Christian Johannes Justus Pretorius, 30, of Pretoria; Fraser Angus Carey, 31, Johan Frederick Bouchaud, 30, and Steven Leong, 31 (all three of Johannesburg); Johannes Judenis Humphries, 65, of Centurion, and Johan Abraham van Huyssteen, 31, of Port Elizabeth.
The Department of International Relations and Co-operation was rendering consular assistance to the families, department spokesman, Nelson Kgwete, said yesterday.
The South Africans, except Bouchaud, worked for a Johannesburg-based aviation company, BalmOral Central Contracts, also known as Aircraft Charter Solution or ACS/BalmOral, and were en route to the Kabul airport when a 22-year-old suicide bomber crashed her Toyota Corolla into the minibus they were travelling in. Three Afghan civilians and a citizen of Kyrgyzstan were also killed in the attack.
Ayris was the company’s customer relations manager. According to her LinkedIn business profile, she started work at ACS/BalmOral in September last year. Tributes were made on a Facebook page that was set up yesterday in her memory.
“Jeni Ayris was a warm, kind and generous person with an everyday objective of helping everyone she met,” Michael Hodgson had posted. “She had a positive boundless energy which rubbed off on everyone, making her loss all the more hurtful.
“Jeni leaves behind a sister [Patricia] who is her only family as well as a huge number of friends across Scotland and the world who are all absolutely devastated by her tragic death,” he wrote.
“Although born in South Africa, Jeni was a British citizen and her home was firmly rooted in Edinburgh where she had lived for the past 17 years. She loved living in the UK and was very passionate about her life in Scotland. For 10 years she was a popular figure in Tollcross where she ran the Ndebele South African Cafe and Delicatessen.”
Respected
Hodgson said Ayris was highly respected and valued in her job as a manager in the aviation sector where she was responsible for the safe air travel of NGO staff throughout Afghanistan.
“Her contribution was her practical way of helping Afghanistan move forward,” he said.
Maria Davie had commented on a picture of Ayris on the dedicated page and said: “What a great girl! We will all miss her jokes, her energy, her generosity, her hospitality, her wry sense of humour, her huge sense of fun, her hugs, her everything. She truly lived life to the full but always had time for all her many friends. Each one of them so important to her. She left a few times but she always came back. Until now. I will miss her badly. So so sad.”
Darryl Wood, Booth’s partner of 14 years, said his death had come as a huge shock.
Steven Leong’s mother, Hilda, said she was afraid for her son ever since he took the job in Afghanistan.
“He was always interested in planes, ever since he was a young man. I always had this fear, actually,” Hilda said.
But she couldn’t stop her son – the youngest of three – from going to Afghanistan.
“Yet another bomb blast, more dead,” said his older brother from England, Lee Oades.
“Here in the UK we hear about soldiers being killed every day. But they aren’t South African. They aren’t your brother.”
The aviation company said in a press statement yesterday it had been in contact with the families and wished to convey its condolences to all those affected by “this random tragic event”. The company also thanked the South African aviation community for its concern.
The Air Line Pilots’ Association South Africa (ALPA-SA) called the tragedy a “blatant and deliberate attack on innocent civilians”.
“This is indeed a very dark day in our industry,” said ALPA-SA president, Captain Fanie Coetzee.
Meanwhile, Moulana Ebrahim I Bham, of the Jamiatul Ulama South Africa, a council of Muslim theologians, said yesterday that although Hezb-I-Islami, an Islamic militant group, had claimed responsibility for the attack as an act of revenge against the release of an anti-Islam online film which ridicules the Prophet Muhammad, “there cannot be certainty about this motive”.
“Afghanistan has become a country where such attacks are common occurrence,” Bham said in a statement.
“It is our view that the spiralling violence can be stopped only by an immediate ending of the occupation of Afghanistan. Genuine help for Afghanis towards rebuilding their society should be without foreign interference.”