USA-SHOOTING/SOUTH CAROLINA-MICHELLE OBAMA Michelle Obama speaks of heartache over Charleston church shooting

Record ID: 151716

  • Title: USA-SHOOTING/SOUTH CAROLINA-MICHELLE OBAMA Michelle Obama speaks of heartache over Charleston church shooting
  • Date: 19th June 2015
  • Summary: VINCENZA, ITALY (JUNE 19, 2015) (REUTERS) U.S. FIRST LADY, MICHELLE OBAMA, WALKING UP TO DIAS AND WAVING TO THE GATHERING PEOPLE GATHERED FOR BARBECUE
  • Embargoed: 4th July 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Italy
  • Country: Italy
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA4C8Z8V21A6RIBMGPHC0K3EAM9
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama paid tributes to the people of Charleston town in South Carolina, where nine black people were shot dead at a historic church.
    Police have arrested Dylann Roof, a 21-year-old white man, who is suspected of carrying out the attack.
    Four ministers including a Democratic state senator were killed in the attack at the 200-year-old Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church on Wednesday.
    Michelle Obama was addressing servicemen at a U.S. garrison in Vicenza in Italy, where she is on a five-day visit with her daughters.
    "As my husband said yesterday, simply saying that our thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families simply doesn't convey the heartache we all feel. We have seen too many tragedies like this and there is something particularly horrifying about something that happened, so senseless in a house of worship," she said.
    "So, my heart goes out to the people of Emanuel and to the people of Charleston. I pray for a community that I know is in pain. And with the hope that tragedies like this will one day come to an end. And that's why I always try to come back to -- hope, hope. And I can do that because of people like all of you," Michelle Obama said.
    The church, known as "Mother Emanuel," was founded in the early 19th century by black worshippers who were limited in how they could practise their faith at white-dominated churches. Burned to the ground in the late 1820s when one of its founders drafted plans for a slave revolt, the church was later rebuilt.
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