A requiem mass for the late Commissioner of Police Christine Alalo held at All Saints Cathedral Nakasero yesterday turned more emotional than usual events of the kind, as it turned out that there wasn’t anything like a bodily remain of the deceased for the mourners to pay respects to.
Where most people at such events have the remains of the deceased present, in the case of the fallen AMISOM Police worker who died in last week’s fatal Ethiopian Airlines plane crash, there was only an empty stand with a photograph of Christine Alalo put in front of the mourners in church.
Mr James Okello, the brother of late Alalo, even made the emotions run higher as he somberly revealed that the family has almost lost all hopes of recovering any kind of bodily remains of the deceased. He said that the only thing he managed to get when he went to Ethiopia were the three pieces of the wreckage.
“The body parts, we are told, are more than 15,000 and it will take six months to do DNA [body identification] tests on them,” Okello said.
In his speech Inspector General of Police Martin OkothOchola said that they will not get tired of engaging the Ethiopian authorities until some of her parts are returned home. Ocholadescribed Alalo as a person who was determined to serve the police force in every capacity.
“She was a highly valuable and respected member of UPF. She made many great contributions to the institution and helped it move forward in numerous ways,” IGP Ochola said.
Alalo met her death in a plane crash in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a fortnight ago and she left behind two children.