Fallen Tunisian President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was buried on Saturday (September 21st) in the Muslim holy city of Medina in western Saudi Arabia.
The former head of state, who died in Jeddah, south of Medina on Thursday, September 19, was buried in the cemetery of Al-Baqi, near the mausoleum of the Prophet Muhammad, after the prayer of the midday.
Covered with a green shroud, the body of the former president was transported to his last home by a procession of several men. Dressed in white, they crossed a marbled esplanade, in the shadow of the green dome of the great mosque of the prophet, before entering the cemetery.
His burial in Medina was previously announced by one of his sons-in-law on Instagram. "Today, the funeral of President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali will take place after the afternoon prayer in Medina and he will be buried in the holy places near the tomb of the Prophet" Muhammad, said the rapper K2Rhym , whose real name is Karim Gharbi.
Indifference of the Tunisian media
A part of the family of Ben Ali will also receive condolences Sunday in Sidi Bou Said, a posh suburb of Tunis, according to an announcement in the French-language daily newspaper La Presse.
Driven by the street on January 14, 2011 after installing a police regime in Tunisia for two decades, Ben Ali died Thursday in exile.
His death was passed over by the Saudi media.
It did not make headlines or conversations in Tunisia either, as the country prepares to elect its deputies on October 6, then to choose a president between two outsiders, a jailed businessman and an academic advocating radical decentralization.
With AFP