A memorial funeral service was held this afternoon in Kokopo for the seven family members who perished when their house was engulfed by fire at Tokua last week.
It was a funeral service like no other, held at the Kokopo Revival Church.
The seven caskets were placed adjacent to each other next to the church alter. All seven bodies, disfigured. Each casket has a photo frame indicating who lay beneath it.
Family members, relatives and friends came to show their last respect to a wife, a son, 4 daughters and two of their relatives.
” I tried to recall the ordeal that we went through. It was just a memory. Today I am left with nothing”, said Bona Aufa, the husband and father of the deceased.
During the memorial service, the pain of the relatives struggling to come to terms with their deaths was unimaginable.
Late Mary and her four children, Barbara, Junior, Michelle and Carolyne including two other relatives, Mary Inee and Jeremiah Elie who were living with them died when their home at Tokua on the outskirts of Kokopo town was razed down by fire last Monday.
Bona and their two children are the only survivors.
“I have only one boy. He has broke my heart. I called him Junior Bona because he was the only boy in the family and I thought he was going to take my place and replace me. Today I missed him”
It has been eight days since the fire razed down their home.
Over the next three days, relatives will be preparing the final journey of the seven family members to be repatriated back to their father’s village, in Mekeo, in the Central province.
Bona, who will accompany the casket of his family members back to his village is still in agony.
He says, he hasn’t found peace yet.
But he says at least their remains will be put to rest at a decent place with headstones, engraved with their names on it.
By Edwin Fidelis, EMTV News, Kokopo
