Thousands Gather in Jordan to Bury Victims of Church Shooting

Thousands of mourners packed the grounds of St George's Greek Orthodox Church in southern Jordan on Sunday for the burials of eight victims of a deadly shooting. Prime Minister Jafar Hassan was among those who attended.

The church stands in the village of Hamoud, in Karak province, southwest of the capital, Amman. Two days earlier, attackers opened fire during another funeral held there. Nine people were killed and dozens were wounded in a rare assault on Jordan's Christian minority, and the government declared three days of national mourning.

The ninth victim, Mohammed al-Qasous, is due to be buried on Monday, his family told the AFP news agency.

Coffins draped in Jordanian flags were carried through the crowds around the church while priests led prayers and security personnel stood guard. Jordan's state news agency, Petra, reported that Hassan was joined by government ministers and senior military and civilian officials, and that thousands of citizens took part in the procession.

Survivors described scenes of panic. Sahar al-Halsa, who lives nearby, told Reuters she sheltered behind a pillar as shots rang out and people screamed. When she ran outside, she found her cousin Assem wounded. "Assem, Assem, my darling, answer me," she recalled saying. He briefly opened his eyes before dying, she said.

Father Yohanna Hamati told AFP that between 170 and 200 people were at the church for Friday's funeral when firing began outside. Mourners at first struggled to grasp what was happening, he said, before people rushed into the church to escape. By Saturday, bullet holes remained in the walls and wooden pews, and windows were shattered. Church workers were cleaning away blood as villagers prepared for the burials.

Jordanian authorities have called the attack "extremist terrorism." King Abdullah, who visited some of the wounded in hospital on Friday, has promised a forceful response. The assailants are still being sought. Officials say they have not determined whether the attackers were tied to an armed group, and no organisation has claimed responsibility.

The violence has prompted shows of solidarity across religious lines. Christians make up about 3 percent of Jordan's largely Muslim population, and AFP reported that Muslims were among the wounded. Young volunteers visited a hospital in Karak with flowers and a message reading, "Our loss is one."

The mourning also reached Washington, DC, on Sunday, where members of the Jordanian community lit candles outside their country's embassy. Jordan's ambassador to the US, Dina Kawar, told the gathering that efforts to stir religious division were "bound to fail." In Hamoud, Father Hamati called for unity and stressed that Muslims had suffered in the attack too. "We make no distinction between Muslim and Christian," he told AFP.