Ministers Roccella and Locatelli attend Indi's funeral

(ANSA) - ROME, DEC 1 - Family and Equal Opportunities Minister Eugenia Roccella and Disabilities Minister Alessandra Locatelli on Friday attended the funeral in Nottingham of Indi Gregory, the eight-month-old incurably ill British girl to whom Premier Giorgia Meloni's government granted Italian citizenship in early November as part of an unsuccessful bid to keep her alive.
    Indi died in the United Kingdom early on November 13 after British doctors turned off her life-support machine.
    The Meloni government had tried to bring her to a Rome hospital for treatment but British judges ruled that it was not in her best interests for the life support to continue.
    "Dear brothers and sisters, dear Claire and Dean, I am here to express on behalf of the Italian government our deep sorrow for Indi's death," said Roccella.
    "We did everything possible to bring her to Rome where she could have had support, another chance for treatment, a second opinion from other doctors in one of the best paediatric hospitals in the world, the Bambino Gesù," she continued, adding: "We believe that even when a sick person cannot be cured, they can be cared for and looked after. To consider death as the 'best interest' is to put life and death on the same level and for us this is not right".
    Pope Francis also sent a telegram of condolence for the funeral at Nottingham Cathedral saying he was "was saddened to learn of the death of little Indi Gregory, and sends condolences and the assurance of his spiritual closeness to her parents, Dean and Claire, and to all those who mourn the loss of this precious daughter of God".
    "We did what we could, everything that was possible," Meloni said in a social-media post after Indi's death.
    "Unfortunately, it was not enough. Have a good journey, little Indi". (ANSA).