The Algerians Are On A Date With A Historic Funeral For Their Army Chief

The ongoing preparations regarding the funeral of the late Deputy Minister of National Defense, Chief of Staff of the National People’s Army, Lieutenant-General Ahmed Gaid Salah, indicate that it will be one of the few important funerals that Algeria has witnessed since its independence.

A statement issued by the Presidency of the Republic stated that the funeral ceremony will be the beginning of taking a final look at the body of the deceased in the People’s Palace, before his pure body would be laid at his last resting place in the Martyrs” Square in the Cemetery of Al-Alia east of Algiers.
Hundreds of buses were made available in various provinces at the disposal of those mourners wishing to move to the funeral of the deceased, and some volunteers put the properties they own in the capital at the disposal of those who want to attend the funeral and who do not have the possibility to stay or return on the same day.

It is expected that the body of the deceased will roam the streets of the capital before the burial is cleared, and before tents would be erected in various provinces of the country tents to invoke Allah’s mercy on the soul of the late Deputy Minister of National Defense, whose name has turned into an icon of dedication and loyalty to the country during the last ten months, among many patriotic Algerians.

Before that, the deceased’s body will be transferred from the Central Army Hospital in Ain-Naàdja, this morning to the People’s Palace in upper Algiers order to enable citizens to take a final look at it, then the coffin will be wrapped in the national flag, on board a military vehicle, so that the funeral procession will turn into the midday hours to The Cemetery of El Alia by passing through the major streets of the capital notably to Didouche Mourad and then the Central Post office square and finally heading to the Cemetery of El Alia in the eastern suburbs of Algiers.

The funeral of the late President Houari Boumediene, who died in 1978 in the same month during which Lieutenant General Gaid Salah died in 2019, remains the largest in the country’s history, and some expect that tomorrow’s funeral will not be less important than the one that took place more than forty years ago, given the rallying date tomorrow.

The Algerians recall those emotional scenes that were broadcast by the Algerian television during the funeral of the late Houari Boumediene, which highlighted the degree of great influence observed even today, and the Algerians lived similar scenes, but to a lesser degree, similar to what happened in the funerals of the late presidents, Ahmed Ben Bella and Chadli Bendjedid as well as during the funeral of the moujahid or war veteran Hocine Ait Ahmed.