Terror victims home in three weeks

The bodies of the eight South Africans killed in a terror attack in Afghanistan last week are expected to be repatriated in three weeks.

The four pilots and their support staff were on their way to Kabul International Airport when they were killed by a 22-year-old female suicide bomber.

The bomber drove a car packed with 300kg of explosives into the minibus carrying the South Africans and four other people, killing everyone and injuring dozens more.

The Taliban-affiliated group that claimed responsibility for the attack, Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin, said the killings were in revenge for the making of the film Innocence of Muslims, which portrays the principal prophet of Islam, Mohammed, as a womaniser who allowed the abuse of children.

The eight South Africans were working for BalmOral Central Contracts, a private logistics chartering company that contracts flights to clients in Afghanistan.

BalmOral spokesman Chantal van Wyk said yesterday: "The bodies will, we hope, be returned to their families in South Africa in three weeks.

"There is a long administrative process to bring the bodies, which have all been identified, out of Afghanistan and into South Africa."

She said the death certificates would be issued in Afghanistan.

"It will take at least four days to transport the bodies to South Africa.

"They will first be flown to Dubai."

Van Wyk said her company's operations in Afghanistan were continuing as normal.