Residents of Jordan’s al-Karak gathered on Sunday to mourn the victims of the terrorist attack on a church in the village of Hammoud, as families of the victims and local residents took part in a joint official and public funeral.
The funeral procession began at 1 pm local time, with processions setting off from several churches before converging at the burial site in Hamoud village. A mass grave and memorial had been prepared at the site in honor of the victims.
Citizens, tribal delegations and Jordanian officials traveled to al-Karak to pay their respects and offer condolences to the bereaved families.
Funeral prayers were held beside the church before the victims were laid to rest at the designated burial site.
The unprecedented attack by gunmen targeting Christians in the kingdom left nine people dead and 25 wounded, according to the latest figures released by the authorities.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far. Officials said it was too early to establish whether the perpetrators had ties to known groups operating inside or outside Jordan.
Father Youhanna Hamati, the church’s pastor, told AFP that he was attending a parishioner’s funeral on Friday alongside around 170 to 200 people when gunfire erupted outside the church shortly after 2 pm.
Hamati said the mourners initially struggled to understand what was happening. “At first, they did not understand what was happening. But as they rushed into the church, we began to realize that there was an attack,” he said, adding that the attackers were “hunting people down in a cunning and malicious way.”
He described the incident as a tragedy that was foreign to Jordanian society, saying, “This is a tragic terrorist incident that is alien to our Jordanian society. Nothing like it has ever happened before, neither to a church nor to a mosque.”
Hamati also noted that some of the injured were Muslims who had attended the funeral, emphasizing the unity between the country’s religious communities.
“We make no distinction between Muslim and Christian,” he said, stressing that the attack “is not in keeping with the morals of Jordanians.”
