China holds homecoming ceremony for peacekeepers killed in Haiti quake

BEIJING, Jan. 19 (Xinhua) -- China held a homecoming ceremony for eight peacekeeping police officers, who were killed in the Haiti earthquake last week, at the Beijing Capital International Airport on Tuesday morning.

State Councilor and Minister of Public Security Meng Jianzhu presided over the ceremony.

Zhou Yongkang, a Standing Committee member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, joined families and colleagues of the deceased police officers, as their coffins were escorted off the China Southern Airlines Boeing 747 which landed in Beijing earlier Tuesday.

Wearing a traditional white paper flower to his chest and a black armband, Zhou led the mourners to bow three times before the coffins draped in Chinese national flags.

Mourners holding a banner wait for the arrival of the coffins of the eight  peacekeeping police officers who were killed in the Haiti earthquake at the  Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in Beijing Jan. 19, 2010. The coffins of the eight  peacekeeping police officers are to be brought here on Tuesday. (Xinhua/Wang  Jianhua)