“We are working on the necessary documents for the return to Italy of the body of Brother Giorgio Zulianello”, said to MISNA Brother Graziano de Angeli, provincial superior of the Order of Friars Minor Capuchin in Angola, contacted this morning in Luanda.

Brother Zulianello’s body, explained the Capuchin, is currently at the Sagrado Esperanca Hospital in Luanda.

“We do not know when his body will be able to be brought back to Italy, because some time will be needed for the official papers”, added the Angolan superior of the Capuchins.

In Mbanza Congo, the north-eastern Angolan city (not far from the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo) where Friar Zulianello lived, a prayer vigil was held last night by the local population in memory of the Italian missionary, killed in a plane crash along with another four people (three passengers and an elderly man killed in his home when the plane crashed into some buildings while in landing phase).

The residents of Mbanza Congo attended with great emotion a mass celebrated by the Bishop in the Church of the Capuchin missionaries, however not hiding their disappointment that the missionary will be buried in Italy.

Meanwhile, MISNA sources in the past hours said that another two people, including one of the pilots of the Boeing of Angola's state TAAG airline that crashed yesterday on landing in Mbanza Congo, died in hospital from their injuries.

The causes of the crash remain unclear and the local press today reports both the possibility of engine failure and pilot error.

Source: MISNA
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