IT WAS a silent embrace. Two fathers and a mother stood in the sunshine, their arms wrapped around each other, as thousands of mourners applauded. One father knows his daughter is dead, the other couple hope their daughter is alive. Both children are victims of the gang led by Marc Dutroux.
The moment came after the two-hour funeral yesterday morning in Saint-Martin Basilica in Liege for Julie LeJeune and Melissa Russo, the eight-year-old girls found buried in Dutroux's garden last Saturday. Paul and Betty Marchal approached Julie's father, Mr, Jean-Denis LeJeune, and the three clasped and remained holding each other.
An Marchal (19) had been missing for exactly a year yesterday. Dutroux told police he abducted her, along with Eefje Lambrecks (17) in Ostend. He has said they are alive, but are not in the country.
Earlier, at 10.55 a.m. the bells rang out at Saint-Martin, along with thousands of others around Belgium.
The crowds had gathered from early morning in the small cobbled streets and they began to clap as the funeral cortege arrived. Two fire engines, covered in flowers, led she procession. Mr LeJeune was a fireman and his colleagues provided a guard of honour. Fourteen cars covered in flowers with toys lined up on the dashboards followed and finally the two hearses carrying the small white marble coffins arrived.
The soundtrack from the film The Piano played in the basilica as the families entered. Outside, the satellite dishes beamed the ceremony across Belgium.
Family friend Father Gaston Schoonbroodt talked about the immense show of sympathy.
"On the surface there is courage", describing the 14 months since Julie and Melissa were abducted as the 14 stations of the cross. It had been "a Calvary that should have been impossible to survive. But you have survived it", he said.
Mr Victor Hissel, the lawyer for the families, spoke of the parents' struggle "fighting this hell", and Ms Marianne Verheyden, from a parents' support group, read an anonymous piece about lost children, called "They were our future".
Outside, cards were handed out with the picture of Julie and Melissa, as, familiar to most Belgians as pictures of their own children. Underneath, a verse read: "We were only eight years old and had lots of dreams. One would have believed that life would be beautiful. You, the grown-ups, make a better world for us.
Shortly before 1 p.m. Belgium's justice minister, Mr Stefaan de Clerck, left the basilica surrounded by security men. A target for the anger that underpins the grief, he hurried past the jeering crowds and was driven away.
