- REUTERS
Jordanian U.N. peacekeepers pray next to the coffin of their comrade Capt. Yousef Mubark Muflih Algader during a military ceremony in Port-au-Prince yesterday. The Jordanian captain was killed during an attack on December 24, by unidentified gunmen in the slum of Cite Soleil, said the U.N. communications office in Haiti.
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP):
A JORDANIAN officer who was killed while serving as a U.N. peacekeeper in Haiti was revered as a martyr yesterday as he received military honours at a service in the capital.
Capt. Youssef Algader was shot in the head Dec. 24 while patrolling a main road on the outskirts of the highly volatile Cite Soleil slum. The body of Algader, who was 31, married and had three children, was to be flown back to his village of Zarqua in Jordan on Friday.
"I pray for Allah the almighty to greet our martyr in paradise," said Col. Mohammed Sabayleh, who commands the 1st Battalion in Cite Soleil, where Algader served.
Algader's casket, draped in a blue U.N. flag, was then turned toward the holy Muslim city of Mecca.
At the brief ceremony, a fellow Jordanian officer said Algader was distributing food to civilians an hour before shooting broke out in Cite Soleil. A battalion of 1,500 Jordanian peacekeepers in armoured vehicles has pledged to reclaim the slum from heavily armed gangs.
