THE Bloody Sunday Trust is backing a campaign for truth and justice by loved ones of the Creeslough explosion victims.
Tragically, 10 people were killed in an explosion in Creeslough on October 7, 2022.
Their families recently went to Leinster House in Dublin to campaign for a full inquest as part of their demand for answers four years on.
Some of the Creeslough families who travelled to Leinster House to address TDs and Senators. Photo RTÉ.
In recent days, the families of the 14 people killed on Bloody Sunday in Derry on January 30, 1972, vowed to support the Creeslough campaigners.
They met families and survivors like Hugh and Donna Harper, the parents of victim Leona Harper; survivor Christine Evans; and Áine Flanagan, whose partner Robert Garwe and daughter Shauna Flanagan-Garwe both perished.
Bloody Sunday Trust director Maeve McLaughlin told them: “We would be standing with you on the fourth anniversary and saying, ‘Here are the demands of the Creeslough Justice Campaign’.”
The Trust said in a statement: “Donna Harper’s daughter Leona was among the 10 people who lost their lives in the Creeslough explosion after visiting a friend in the village.
“Since Leona’s death, Donna has been seeking a public inquiry into what happened, meeting Government ministers, elected representatives, and the President of Ireland in her pursuit of truth and accountability.
“This highlights the continuing importance of independent processes that place victims, families and communities at the centre of the search for truth and accountability.”
A spokesperson for Museum Free Derry said: “From Bloody Sunday to Creeslough, the search for truth continues.”
The 10 who died in Creeslough were aged from five to 59.
They were: James O’Flaherty (48), Jessica Gallagher (24), Martin McGill (49), Catherine O’Donnell (39) and her son James Monaghan (13), Hugh Kelly (59), Martina Martin (49), Robert Garwe (50), Shauna Flanagan Garwe (5) and Leona Harper (14).
The decision by the Bloody Sunday Trust to support the Creeslough families was announced at an event to mark the 16th anniversary of the publication of the Saville Report.
The late Fr Edward Daly pictured waving a white flag on Bloody Sunday.
The inquiry, also known as the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, was established in 1998 and its report was published on June 15, 2010, making it the longest legal proceedings in Irish or British history, according to the Free Museum of Derry.
The inquiry exonerated all 14 victims and said the killings were “unjustified and unjustifiable”, prompting an historic apology from British prime minister David Cameron, who said: “I am deeply sorry.”