Hundreds Turn Out at Mass for U.S. Girl Killed in Rome Attack
ROME — Hundreds of friends and supporters joined an American newsman’s family at a funeral service today to mourn a schoolgirl killed in last week’s airport slaughter.
Colleagues of Associated Press correspondent Victor Simpson bore the small white coffin containing the body of his 11-year-old daughter, Natasha, into a chapel at Rome’s North American College for a service attended by about 500 people.
She was one of 18 people, five of them Americans, killed in twin attacks by terrorists Friday at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Airport and at the Schwechat Airport in Vienna.
Pope John Paul II sent a brief message of condolence to Simpson, 43, and his wife, Daniela, who reports from the Vatican for Time magazine.
Simpson, who was wounded at the Rome airport along with his son, Michael, attended the Mass with his arm in a sling.
U.S. Ambassador and Mrs. Maxwell Rabb and Israeli Ambassador Eytan Ronn attended the service along with about three dozen of Natasha’s fellow students from the Marymount International School.
Natasha, the daughter of a Roman Catholic mother and a Jewish father, was buried at Prima Porta cemetery. A private Jewish service was held later.
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