Eritrea: A Call for National day of Mourning & funeral service

A Call for National day of Mourning &  funeral service

We, the families of the victims of Lampedusa disaster who reside in Eritrea have agreed to hold a national day of mourning and a funeral service for our sons, daughters, brothers and sisters who lost their life in tragic circumstances far from their home; and now denied even the chance to be buried in their homeland. Hence, in accordance to our custom and tradition, we found it imperative that funeral services be conducted, condolences expressed and grieving families properly comforted.

Although it was our wish to receive the bodies of our loved ones, our repeated pleas to have their bodies repatriated have fallen on deaf ears again and again with unreasonable excuses.. To make things worst we are now hearing that our loved ones have been buried in foreign lands.

Losing hope of burying our love ones has added pain to our suffering.  We are heartbroken and grieving. Our situation is desperate. Sorrow has changed the look of mothers. Fathers, heartbroken and confused, don’t know what to do. We are surrounded by people wailing with us, no one to comfort us.

Now that we have decided to console ourselves with a national day of funeral service and commemoration, we hope every family will join in.

We have heard that the African Union, whose head office is in Addis Ababa, held a day of mourning on the 3rd of November 2013 to the victims of Lampedusa tragedy. Wearing a black ribbon and their flag at half mast, they commemorated our dead. We appreciate their kind actions and their respect for our dead. We would like to acknowledge that this kind and responsible action by the African Union has contributed to stirring our hearts to do something. Since it is now not possible to bury our loved at home, where they belong, we have decided the least we can do is hold a national day mourning and funeral service.

We have decided the day and time for the national mourning and funeral service as follows: 10th of November 2013 at Asmara Martyrs cemetery.  The funeral service will start at 10:00 AM and end at 12:00PM.

We respectfully invite everyone to attend.

Eternal memory to our martyrs!

From: Volunteer organizing committee of Funeral Service for martyrs of Lampedusa

Asmara

Original text in Tigrina{jcomments off}