Iraq bomb: Envoy's body in Geneva
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Sergio Vieira de Mello's coffin arriving at Geneva airport
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The U.N. took time to remember the life and achievements of Sergio Vieira de Mello and others who died.
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GENEVA, Switzerland -- The body of Sergio Vieira de Mello, the U.N. envoy killed in a blast at the organization's headquarters in Baghdad, has arrived in Geneva, where it will be buried later this week.
The body was flown in an official aircraft from Brazil, Vieira de Mello's native land, where it had been honored with a 24-hour wake in Rio de Janeiro. It had been flown to Brazil from Baghdad on Friday.
Vieira de Mello's coffin was met at Geneva Airport by a delegation of U.N. officials and Brazilian diplomats and driven in a motorcade to the Cimetiere des Rois, or Cemetery of Kings, where it was placed in a private chapel.
The body was accompanied by de Mello's widow Annie and two grown sons, who had travelled with it on the 13-hour flight from Rio de Janeiro.
It will be buried later this week, following a memorial service at the U.N.'s Geneva offices for all the victims of the August 19 blast in which at least 23 people died.
It had originally been planned to hold the funeral in Thonon-les-Bains in France, the town where de Mello and his family lived.
The arrangements were changed at the last minute, however, when the Geneva authorities invited his family to bury him in the Cimetiere des Rois, which is reserved for persons of international repute. It will lie alongside such figures as John Calvin, the 16th Century Protestant reformer, and Nobel Prize-winning novelist Jorge Luis Borge.
In a speech at Vieira de Mello's wake in Brazil U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said that it had been the diplomat's dying wish for the U.N. mission to remain in Iraq.
"Let us respect that," Annan said. "Let Sergio, who has given his life in that cause, find a fitting memorial in a free and sovereign Iraq."
Vieira de Mello, 55, was to end his assignment as the United Nations' special representative to Iraq next week, when he would have resumed his duties as the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, a post he had held since September 2002. (Vieira de Mello profile)
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Associated Press contributed to this report.
