Refusal to refund on cancellation- Signal Hill Lodge

We had made a booking for a group of people from an institution from Zambia, outside South Africa, from 4th to 9th November 2024. The lodge demanded full payment for the rooms which we paid. Unfortunately, one of the people could not take up the room or travel to Cape Town due to a bereavement which happened the day before they were due to travel. We informed the lodge of this and they refused to refund any of the money paid for the room. The lodge insisted that full payment for the room still app**** and that this was their policy. They in fact leased the room to someone else but still refused to refund any of the money paid for it. The response from the lodge was quite aloof and rude, it also lacked any form of empathy or understanding. The customer service at the lodge was also quite pathetic.