Philippine teenager’s burial turns into protest vs killings
MANILA, Philippines — A Filipino teenager at the centre of the latest outcry against the president’s bloody crackdown against illegal drugs was buried Saturday, with mourners turning his funeral into a protest against thousands of drug killings.
Hundreds of mourners and left-wing activists carried placards that read “Stop killing the poor” and “Justice for Kian” during a kilometres-long (miles-long) funeral march before Kian Loyd delos Santos was interred at a public cemetery in the Manila metropolis.
The 17-year-old student, who wanted to become a police officer, was one of more than 80 drug and crime suspects who were killed in purported gunbattles with police over three days this month in the bloodiest few days of President Rodrigo Duterte’s anti-drug campaign. The killings sparked alarm and official investigations.
During a funeral Mass at a church, Roman Catholic Bishop Pablo David urged authorities to “stop the killings and start the healing.”