Omagh Aftermath: A terrible beauty as the bodies are buried and Ulster prays for peace

THOUSANDS OF people crowded the centre of Omagh and Belfast yesterday, to pray together for peace as the Real IRA's statement was roundly condemned.

A vigil in Omagh's main car park brought together around five thousand people to pray and remember the victims of Saturday's bomb. With many in tears, the crowd held a minute's silence for the 28 people who died.

Kieran Gallagher, chairman of the cross-community Focus group which organised the vigil, said it was a way for the people of the town to come together and share their sense of loss.

In Belfast yesterday afternoon, the 28 names were read to thousands of people holding another vigil outside the City Hall, where representatives of all churches stood together in silence.

As the attempts to heal the wounds began, Metropolitan Police anti-terrorist officers were preparing to fly to Northern Ireland today to join the operation to find the bombers.

The Royal Ulster Constabulary Chief Constable, Ronnie Flanagan, announced last night that he had talked with the assistant commissioner for special operations in London, David Veness, about the Omagh inquiry, one of the largest of its type in Northern Ireland.

Chief Superintendent Eric Anderson, heading the inquiry, said: "We are facing an enormous task requiring meticulous examination of literally tons of rubble. This additional help represents a very significant increase in our ability to extract as quickly as is humanly possible every last piece of evidence."

Among politicians and public alike, the response to the Real IRA's statement was one of intense anger and contempt.

Mo Mowlam, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, also visiting Omagh, said that both the British and Irish governments would continue to hunt the group down.

"They are murderers pure and simple," she said.

"People will have absolute contempt for their pathetic attempt to apologise for and excuse mass murder. The British and Irish governments will do all they can do hunt them down and bring them to justice." The Real IRA's claim that sufficient warning was given and civilians had not been the intended target was dismissed by the RUC. A spokesman said. "The message we received was that the bomb had been placed near the courthouse. The warnings were variable - one was for 40 minutes and there was one for 15 minutes. This is a pathetic attempt to justify or shift the blame for the murders of 28 men, women and children."

The Deputy First Minister of the new Northern Ireland Assembly, Seamus Mallon, said the statement was so callous and pathetic it scarcely deserved a reply. It was, he said, an attempt to excuse the inexcusable.

A spokesman for the Dublin government said: "This excuse and explanation are cold comfort for the bereaved and injured. This disclaimer provides no justification or extenuation."

The fear that the group, having committed one such atrocity, would not hesitate to commit another, is not far from many minds.

The Ulster Unionist MP Ken Maginnis said: "The fact that this organisation is now admitting responsibility at a time when public feeling is running so high is intended to send a clear message to their supporters that, irrespective of the consequences, the next bomb is on the way."

The fear was reiterated by Peter Robinson, deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, who described the statement as more of a threat than an apology. He said the Real IRA's reference to the "ongoing war with the Brits" was clear indication they intended to carry on.

Mr Robinson said: "They set out intending to murder, perhaps not the exact targets that they ended up being able to murder, but they certainly intended to murder.

"Therefore, there is a very real threat that must be dealt with in a very decisive way both here in Northern Ireland by the United Kingdom government and in the Republic. This group must be dealt with militarily."

Ulster Unionist William Thompson, the MP for Tyrone West - which includes Omagh - told BBC TV last n ight that the Real IRA statement was "the height, indeed, of arrogance, and the height of deception, and the height of deceit."Before they did this atrocity they ought to have considered the likely results."

People attending the vigil in Omagh said they were insulted by what was claimed to be an apology.

Geraldine Keys, a Focus group member, said: "They still murdered 28 people and they should be ashamed of themselves.

"There was no doubt in my mind that it was them right from the start. Just admitting that they had done it does not make a blind bit of difference to the families who are burying their loved ones and those visiting injured relatives in hospital."

Rozella Kelly, another Focus member, said: "An apology is not much good to those who are dead or those who have had their limbs severed."

Kathleen Brown, who was laying a wreath in Omagh in tribute to her cousin's husband, Brian McCrory, 54, who died in the attack, said: "How can you bomb a town and then come back and apologise for it? The whole world is absolutely disgusted with them."