Jakarta. The government is in the process of bringing back home the body of Yurike Sanger, the ex-wife of Indonesia’s founding father, Sukarno, from the United States.

Yurike had died on Wednesday evening local time while receiving treatment at a local hospital in the Californian city of San Bernardino, near Los Angeles. The 80-year-old was suffering from breast cancer. Yurike was Sukarno’s seventh wife, but the marriage was brief. They tied the knot in 1964, but later divorced in 1968 without producing children. According to the Indonesian Foreign Ministry, the repatriation process is underway.

“Our consulate-general in Los Angeles has kept in touch with the late Mrs. Yurike’s family in San Bernardino, California. Her family has picked a mortuary to handle the burial,” Judha Nugaraha, the ministry’s director for citizen protection, said. 

The Indonesian consulate-general is in coordination with the mortuary and local authorities.

“The Californian authorities are working on her death certificate, which is required for the repatriation," Judha said.

Judha did not say when her remains would land in Jakarta. 

Throughout his life, Sukarno had married nine times. After their separation, Yurike remarried and later settled in the US with her family. Yudhi Sanger, the son from her second marriage, was the first to announce Yurike’s death on social media. The family plans to lay her remains in repose at Jakarta’s Fatmawati Hospital.

Add as a preferred source on Google +