(Southport) Hundreds of mourners gathered in Southport, northwest England, on Sunday for the funeral of a nine-year-old girl killed in a knife attack that sparked a week of far-right riots in Britain.
The crowd gathered along the streets applauded as the small white coffin carrying the remains of Alice da Silva Aguiar passed in a carriage pulled by two white horses.
Relatives and local officials attended a religious ceremony with the girl’s parents at a Catholic church in the traumatised coastal town near Liverpool.
PHOTO SCOTT HEPPELL, ASSOCIATED PRESS
The girl’s coffin was transported in a carriage pulled by two white horses.
The public had been asked to come dressed in white, following a Portuguese tradition, the victim’s family being from the Madeira archipelago.
Pink ribbons and balloons were hung from lampposts along the route of the funeral procession.
PHOTO SCOTT HEPPELL, ASSOCIATED PRESS
The religious ceremony took place at a Catholic church in Southport.
The ceremony, broadcast outside by loudspeakers, included prayers and speeches, including one from the girl’s school principal, Jinnie Payne.
On the verge of tears, she described her as smiling, curious about others and keen to play with all her friends without excluding anyone: “You will always be in our hearts.”
The stabbing took place on July 29 during a Taylor Swift-themed dance class. The other two victims were Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, while eight children and two adults who tried to protect them were injured, all of whom were released from hospital.
PHOTO SCOTT HEPPELL, ASSOCIATED PRESS
The public was invited to pay their respects.
Bebe’s parents, Lauren and Ben King, said in a statement Saturday that their lives had been “shattered” by their daughter’s death “in an act of unimaginable violence.”
They revealed that their eldest daughter, Genie, witnessed the attack and managed to escape.
The triple murder was followed by a week of racist and Islamophobic violence across England and Northern Ireland, fuelled by far-right agitators amid online rumours about the suspect, initially described as a Muslim asylum seeker.
He is in fact a 17-year-old boy, Axel Rudakubana, born in Cardiff, Wales, into a family, according to media reports, originally from Rwanda.
His motives are unknown but the terrorist lead has not been retained.
The latest violence dates back to Monday evening in England, a return to calm against a backdrop of anti-racist demonstrations and following more than 700 arrests of rioters or authors of online messages inciting hatred.