Belgians mourn racism victim
2006-05-17 15:02
Antwerp - Emotions ran high as about 1 000 people attended Wednesday's funeral of a two-year-old girl, killed in a racist gun attack which has shocked Belgium.
Luna Drowart was killed in the northern port city of Antwerp on May 11. Her Malian nanny, 24-year-old Oulematou Niangadou, was also killed.
They were shot by Hans Van Themsche, 18, a skinhead with links to the far-right.
The funeral was held in a church about 100m from the scene of the attack, where the girl's parents Laurence and Damien - who run a local restaurant - used to bring their daughter walking.
The girl's two elder brothers, Jules and Gilles, read a short address in memory of their sister, before laying a rose next to her small, light-coloured wooden coffin.
In an allusion to the background of the killing, the girl's grandmother condemned the "ideology which can make this kind of thing possible".
Hundreds of people demonstrated against the killings in Brussels on Sunday. The protesters accused the far-right Vlaams Belang party - formerly the Vlaams Blok - of being indirectly responsible by stirring up racial hatred.
The head of Vlaams Belang, Franck Vanhecke, said: "Nobody has the right to make us morally responsible for these events."