DERRY, Northern Ireland (Reuters) – Irish people on Sunday commemorated the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, a shooting that claimed the lives of 13 Catholic protesters on January 30, 1972 in Derry and whose perpetrators have never been identified. condemned by the courts.
While the British government, then led by David Cameron, issued an apology in 2010 for the “unjustified and unjustifiable” death of protesters, no officer has ever been brought to justice and the public prosecutor decided last July that the only British soldier implicated would not be prosecuted for murder.
In addition to the 13 dead recorded on January 30, 1972, a fourteenth victim died a few months later.
“Justice must be able to move forward,” Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney told public television channel RTE after laying a wreath and meeting relatives of the victims.
“As someone said, our children were buried 50 years ago but they still haven’t been able to find rest…because justice has not been served,” said he adds.
Simon Coveney has reaffirmed his opposition to a proposal by Boris Johnson’s government to grant amnesty to those responsible for crimes committed during the period of the civil war in Northern Ireland, whether soldiers, members of the IRA or loyalist paramilitaries.
“We cannot in any way support this approach,” said Simon Coveney.
White roses and portraits of the missing in hand, the relatives of the victims of the shooting marched at the head of a parade bringing together several thousand people along the route of the demonstration of January 30, 1972.
The year 1972 marked a turning point in the conflict between armed republican militants demanding the unification of Ireland on the one hand and the British army and loyalist paramilitaries on the other, which cost the lives of more than 3,000 people.
(Conor Humphries; French version Nicolas Delame)
by Clodagh Kilcoyne