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(12 Jun 2000) Natural Sound

Virtually the whole of Syria was in mourning on Monday as preparations moved ahead for the state funeral of President Hafez Assad.

In the capital Damascus, shops were closed and people marched through the centre of the city carrying black banners and pictures of the late president.

His body is still in the Damascus hospital where he died, but is due to be moved to a square in the centre of the city later on Monday where he will lie in state.

Assad's body will then be moved to his home village of Qardaha where he will be buried on Tuesday.

Like the rest of Syria, Damascus was in mourning on Monday, two days after the death of President Hafez Assad.

Shops were closed and the city's normally busy traffic was absent.

Instead, a procession of mourners marched through the streets of the centre, carrying black banners and pictures of the late president.

Meanwhile, Assad's body still lay at the hospital where he was pronounced dead on Saturday after suffering a heart attack.

The body is due to be moved to a square in the centre of the city later on Monday where the late president will lie in state.

He will then be moved to his home village of Qardaha where he will be laid to rest on Tuesday.

His son Basil was also buried in Qardaha after he was killed in a car crash in 1994.

Hafez Assad led Syria for 30 years, and the country's newspapers spoke of nothing else on Monday.

One headline read "The nation buries its great one tomorrow."

Special prayers were also said on Monday, in Damascus' al-Amawi Mosque for the late President.

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