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7/7 victims remembered
01/11/2005 22:50 - (SA)
London - Victims of the July 7 bombings in London were being remembered on Tuesday with a memorial service at St Paul's Cathedral which has prompted anger among some relatives of the dead and injured.
About 2 300 people, led by Queen Elizabeth 2 and Prime Minister Tony Blair, attended the event in memory of the 52 people killed at the hands of four apparent suicide bombers.
The service, designed to show a strong, united front in the face of terrorism, includes the lighting of four candles - each bearing the name of one of the blast sites - ahead of a moment of silent tribute.
But families of some of the victims of the worst terror attack ever on British soil - in which three subway trains and a double-decker bus were targeted - said they planned to stay away.
Lack of practical support
Some expressed anger at a lack of practical support and adequate compensation from the government in the nearly four months since the atrocities.
Others blamed Blair's decision to join the United States in invading Iraq in March 2003 for making the British capital more vulnerable to Islamist extremists.
Blair has repeatedly denied a direct link between the Iraq conflict and the bombings.
Louise Gray planned to be at Tuesday's service to remember her husband, Richard. The couple's seven-year-old daughter, Ruby, presented the queen with a posy of crimson roses, a symbol of mourning.
Anger directed at Blair
But Ruby's 11-year-old brother, Adam, will not be there.
"He is very angry with the bombers but he also blames the war and he blames the government," Gray told newspapers. "He doesn't want to be part of anything that has Tony Blair there."
Sean Cassidy, whose 24-year-old son, Ciaran, was killed in the bus explosion, also cited Iraq as a cause of the attacks and said he intended to go in the hope of expressing his anger to Blair.
"I never thought of not going because I want to speak to Mr Blair to have a little chat about the war (in Iraq)," he told the Guardian newspaper.
Many relatives welcomed the service - co-ordinated by the department of culture, media and sport - but some complained they would have liked more input about its form.
"It just feels like we've been totally sidelined," Saba Mozakka, whose mother Behnaz died at King's Cross subway station, told BBC television.
- AFP
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