The body of Lassana Cisse, the 42-year-old father of three who was gunned down on 6th April 2019, has still not been sent back to the Ivory Coast for him to receive a proper burial. 

Cisse was killed after being shot by two off-duty soldiers while walking home on a Ħal Far road after watching a football match with some friends. 

At 5.30pm today, Moviment Graffitti will be holding a demonstration outside the law courts in Valletta demanding justice in the case with his alleged killers still out on bail and his body still lying in the morgue at Mater Dei.

The Maltese government had offered to pay the costs associated with repatriating Cisse’s body so that he could receive a proper burial in his home country, the Ivory Coast. 

However, three years later and his body remains at the Mater Dei morgue. It is unclear when the repatriation will take place or what, if anything, is standing in the way of this happening.  

Cisse’s body was released for burial by the courts in January 2020 and was set to make the long journey back home to Kuomassi, in the Ivory Coast’s south Abidjan region. 

That year, the government had told Lovin Malta that it was committed to paying for Cisse’s body to be returned home, with Foreign Affairs Minister Evarist Bartolo saying that the government would also pay for a person to accompany the body. 

Plans for the repatriation hit a snag with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the challenges that brought with it.

Sources suggested that the reason the repatriation had not taken place was that Malta was still awaiting a request from Cisse’s family or the embassy in order to set the process in motion. However, Ivory Coast’s status as a Dark Red country has made travel extremely difficult.