Thousands of South Koreans turned out yesterday for the emotional funeral of Kim Sun-il, a young interpreter who was beheaded by Islamic militants in Iraq last week.
A 33-year-old Arabic interpreter and devout Christian who dreamed of missionary work in the Arab world, Kim was killed after Seoul rejected demands to pull 670 military medics and engineers out of Iraq and drop plans to send 3,000 troops there.
Kim's coffin was carried in a funeral van covered with white flowers and a red cross, led by a black van with his portrait and flanked by sobbing friends and relatives. Kim was the seventh of eight children.
PHOTO: AFP
To accommodate a crowd of some 3,000 people, the funeral was held at a gymnasium in Pusan, Kim's home town and the country's second-largest city.
At the center of the gymnasium, flowers surrounded a huge picture of Kim with a banner that read: "I love Iraq."
Kim's family released through local media a conciliatory message to Iraqis, which concluded by saying: "We embrace the nation of Iraq. We love the people of Iraq."
Thousands more people were expected to join rallies in Pusan and Seoul later yesterday by activist groups who are trying to use Kim's death to press the government halt the troop deployment, scheduled for next month.
Many are also waiting for the return from Iraq later in the day of Kim Chun-ho, the president of Cana General Trading, which employed Kim in Iraq. The company supplied goods and services to the US army in Iraq.
Kim Chun-ho is expected to clarify various conflicting and confusing statements he made to South Korean media about dates and details of his employee's abduction.
President Roh Moo-hyun ordered a full investigation last week into the kidnapping and beheading of Kim Sun-il after it emerged he was abducted three weeks before Seoul said it found out.
South Korea's foreign ministry came under fire last week after US television company APTN said it had received a videotape of Kim in Baghdad and had notified the ministry in Seoul on June 3.
The country's parliament is also preparing to conduct a separate probe into how the case was handled by the foreign ministry and intelligence agencies.
Local media have condemned the government for failing to save Kim Sun-il.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS