Thousands Attend Burial of Shiites Gunned down in Saudi
Thousands of mourners joined Friday the funeral of eight people killed during an unprecedented rampage against minority Shiites in Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province.
Seven of the dead were killed when masked gunmen opened fire on Monday night at a crowd in Al-Dalwa town, as Shiites commemorated Ashura, one of their holiest occasions.
An eighth from a neighboring village was killed by the assailants as they robbed his car to use in the attack, residents and local press said.
Mourners poured into Al-Dalwa from across the Sunni-dominated kingdom, a witness told AFP, saying that some also came from neighboring Bahrain.
"Sunnis and Shiites, we are brothers! We shall not abandon our homeland," chanted mourners, according to footage aired online, amid calls to reject sectarianism.
Senior officials in the kingdom have denounced the "terrorist" attack, which also led to the deaths of two policemen in a shootout with alleged suspects.
Posters of the deceased Sunni policemen were carried in the funeral.
Radical Sunni groups consider Shiites heretics and have targeted them in deadly attacks elsewhere in the region.
Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef on Wednesday evening visited families of the murdered civilians, as well as the wounded in hospital, the official Saudi Press Agency said.
The kingdom's Grand Mufti, Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Sheikh, said such crimes "are against the teachings of Islam and create chaos among the ummah", or community of believers, SPA reported.
Since 2011 protests and sporadic attacks on security forces have occurred in Shiite areas of Eastern Province, where the minority community complains of marginalization.
Source: Agence France Presse
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