Crowds and emotion at the funeral of a little girl killed in the Southport attack

Photo: Annabel Lee-Ellis Agence France-Presse The coffin of Alice Da Silva Aguiar is carried out of St. Patrick's Catholic Church in Southport, England, on Sunday.

Agence France-Presse in Southport

Published yesterday at 21:08 Updated yesterday at 21:44

• Europe

Hundreds of people gathered in Southport, northwest England, on Sunday for the emotional funeral of a nine-year-old girl killed in a knife attack that sparked a week of far-right riots in the United Kingdom.

Crowds lined the streets cheered as the small white coffin carrying Alice da Silva Aguiar’s body passed by in a carriage pulled by two white horses.

Relatives and local officials attended a religious ceremony with the girl’s parents at a Catholic church in this small coastal town near traumatised Liverpool.

The public had been asked to come dressed in white, following a Portuguese tradition, as the victim’s family came from the Madeira archipelago.

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Pink ribbons and balloons were hung from lampposts along the funeral procession’s route.

The ceremony, broadcast outside by loudspeakers, included prayers and speeches, such as the one from the girl's school principal, Jinnie Payne.

On the verge of tears, she described her as smiling, curious about others and eager to play with all her classmates without excluding anyone: “You will always be in our hearts.”

The knife attack took place on July 29 during a dance class themed around Taylor Swift songs. The other two victims killed were Bebe King, six, and Elsie Dot Stancombe, seven, while eight children and two adults who tried to protect them were injured, all of whom were released from hospital.

Bebe's parents, Lauren and Ben King, said in a statement on Saturday that their lives had been “shattered” by their daughter's death “in an act of unimaginable violence”.

They revealed that their eldest daughter, Genie, witnessed the attack and managed to escape.

The triple murder was followed by a week of racist and Islamophobic violence across England and Northern Ireland, fuelled by far-right agitators amid online rumours about the suspect, who was initially reported to be a Muslim asylum seeker.

The suspect was in fact 17-year-old Axel Rudakubana, born in Cardiff, Wales, to a family that, according to media reports, originated from Rwanda.

His motives are unknown, but the terrorist lead has not been pursued.