Thousands attend funeral of Brazil’s Campos

Mourners turn out to pay respects to Brazilian presidential candidate, Eduardo Campos, who died in a plane crash.

Tens of thousands of mourners have turned out to pay their respects to Brazilian presidential candidate, Eduardo Campos, who died in a plane crash.

Locals waited hours in line in the city of Recife on Sunday to pay their respects in front of Campos’ coffin and watch an open-air mass attended by a number of Brazilian officials, including President Dilma Rousseff and her predecessor, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. 

Campos, a former socialist governor of the Pernambuco state, was credited with building schools, roads, and hospitals.

He died when his campaign jet slammed into houses in Santos city in bad weather on Wednesday, killing all seven people on board and setting buildings alight.

He had been running third in opinion polls for the October election.

His running mate Marina Silva, who has been chosen to replace him in the campaign, joined the family throughout Sunday’s vigil.

Rousseff, who leads the polls for October’s elections, was booed by sections of the crowd as she arrived for the mass.

Campos will be laid to rest at a cemetery in Santo Amaro alongside his grandfather, Miguel Arraes, a revered local politician in northeast Brazil.

Source: Al Jazeera, News Agencies