Al-anwar Newspaper English news in Australia
Twenty years on and the memories are as strong as ever with organisers of the memorial service at Coogee’s Dolphin Point expecting record numbers of families and friends to pay their respects on Wednesday.
Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and friends all lost their lives in the terror attacks.
The youngest Abbey Borgia, from Tempe, was just 13. Chloe Byron from Bondi was just 15.
“It’s going to be very emotional, I can tell you that now,” Albie Talerico said.
“There will be beers, cheers and tears but not necessarily in that order.”
Mr Talerico took over as president of the Coogee Dolphins rugby league club when Clint Thompson, 29, was among the six players who did not come home from the club’s 2002 end of season trip to Bali.
Eleven of the Coogee Dolphins had arrived in Bali on October 12.
Only five returned after their first evening ended in the terrorist attacks that killed 88 Australians, almost half of them from NSW.
The bodies of the Dolphins teammates – Dave Mavroudis, 28, Gerard Yeo, 20, Clint Thompson, 29, Shane Foley, 33, Josh Illife, 28, and Adam Howard, 26 – were found next to each other together with two girls they were talking to when the bomb went off.
Most of the team were country boys and this year, about 60 of Dave’s school friends and university mates from interstate and his hometown of Wagga Wagga plan to attend the memorial service.
Gerard’s parents Pat and Keir Yeo will be leading their family members heading to the memorial from Dubbo, where his brother Paul has been coach of the Dubbo CYMS Rugby League Football Club.
Peter and Megan Singer, the parents of Tom Singer, 17, will be there.
On his first overseas holiday, Tom was helped cut and bloodied from the flaming wreckage of the Sari nightclub by fellow Australian Hanabeth Luke, who lost her boyfriend Marc Gajardo in that night’s devastation.
Ms Luke will be joining them at the service.
People are asked to arrive by 9.30am for a 10am start. Randwick Council is broadcasting the ceremony live via its Facebook page.
