Quake: Victims' funerals in Amatrice not Rieti

(ANSA) - Amatrice, August 29 - The funerals of earthquake victims from Amatrice will be held in their Lazio village at 18:00 Tuesday after a planned move the provincial capital Rieti was nixed, Amatrice Mayor Sergio Pirozzi said after a protest by survivors. He said he had spoken with Premier Matteo Renzi. Quake survivors in a tent camp at Amatrice earlier protested against a decision to move tomorrow's mass funeral from the Lazio village to the airport in the provincial capital of Rieti. "We won't come to Rieti, give us our dead back," they said.
    "Rieti must come to us, not us go to them," one elderly man told civil protection officials. Local priest Father Fabio said "I'm not going to Rieti, I'll celebrate (the funerals) here, we mustn't go to Rieti." Another man said: "It's a painful decision for us too". The 6.2-magnitude August 24 quake killed 290 people.
    Amatrice was by far the worst hit village with 229 killed.
    It is "right" to hold funerals for the earthquake victims of Amatrice in Amatrice rather than in the provincial capital of Rieti where they had been briefly moved before a citizens' protest, Premier Matteo Renzi said on Twitter. "The funerals of the victims of the #earthquake will be held in Amatrice as the mayor and the local community have asked. And as is right!" he tweeted.