Ieper remembers at the Menin Gate corona-style
The western city of Ieper is the focus of Armistice Day commemorations. In a normal year up to 7,000 people are out and about in Ieper on Armistice Day as the ceremony unfolds at the Mein Gate. This is a monument to British and Commonwealth soldiers with no known grave situated on the road soldiers took to head for the battlefields of Ieper and Passchendaele during the Great War. Due to the corona emergency the ceremony was scaled down this year.
This year the ceremony was cut to ten minutes and only the core elements were retained. The Last Post was sounded but only one bugler was present at the Menin Gate
Normally there is room for a crowd of 500 people under the Menin Gate itself. This year only a couple of dozen witnessed the ceremony from afar with only six people permitted to stand under the Gate. They included PM Alexander De Croo, who read out the poem ‘For The Fallen’ by Laurence Binyon before the emotional moment when poppy petals floated down from the heavens