Crown Prince Family of Denmark attend funeral of ASOS owner’s three children who died in the Sri Lanka bombings

NordenBladet – On Saturday, Crown Prince Frederik, Crown Princess Mary, and their four children (Prince Christian, Princess Isabella, Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine) attended the funeral of the ASOS owner’s three children who died in the Sri Lanka bombings. The Danish Prime Minister attended the ceremony, as well.

The Danish billionaire, Anders Holch Povlsen and his wife, Anne lost three of their four children when the hotel they were holidaying was attacked by Islamic terrorists, together with several other hotels and churches, on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka.

46-year-old Anders Holch Povlsen is considered to be Denmark’s richest man. He owns the international clothing giant Bestseller and has significant shareholdings in the online stores ASOS and Zalando.

The private funeral ceremony took place in Aarhus Cathedral. The royals attended the ceremony as friends of the Holch Povlsen family. Crown Princess Mary, was seen consoling her daughter, Princess Isabella, during the service who was said to have been good friends with one or more of the children who were killed. There were many other attendees, who stood by the church and attended the ceremony in silence.

It was five-year-old Alfred, twelve-year-old, Agnes and fifteen-year-old, Alma that were carried out of the church after the ceremony on Saturday afternoon. The coffins had pictures of the children and were decorated with flowers. The funeral was held two days after a memorial service in their hometown of Brande where Mr Povlsen described the family’s loss as “utterly incomprehensible”.

After several minutes of silence outside the church, the only surviving sibling, their 10-year-old sister, cut the string of balloons, which rose into the blue sky. Then, the cathedral choir sang the hymn “It smells the light green of grass”, while the hearses drove off. Just days before the attacks, Mr Povlsen’s daughter, Alma shared an Instagram photo of her siblings, Astrid, Agnes and Alfred, captioning the moment “three little bears”.

More than 250 people were killed and nearly 500 wounded when suicide bombers attacked three luxury hotels and three churches in Sri Lanka on 21 April. Among the dead were close to 50 were children and 40 foreigners.