ALGIERS, Algeria — Tens of thousands of Algerians massed in a mountain village for a chaotic burial ceremony Friday of a national hero of the brutal independence war with France.
Hocine Ait Ahmed, who spent nearly a quarter-century in exile in Europe, was buried in the village where he was born, a day after his remains arrived in Algiers, the Algerian capital. Ait Ahmed, 89, who was the country’s leading opposition figure, died Wednesday in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Ait Ahmed had requested a burial in his native village, Ath Ahmedh, next to his mother’s grave, nearly 70 miles east of Algiers in the heart of the Kabyle region that is home to Algeria’s Berber population.
The ceremony transformed into a scene of chaos as crowds flooded the mountain roads to view the flag-draped coffin.
