LOCKERBIE, Scotland – One winter’s night in 1988, dozens of bodies fell from the sky onto the green fields surrounding a small stone church a few miles outside this Scottish town.
A Boeing 747 had blown up over Lockerbie, scattering its doomed passengers and crew across the countryside. That moment, and the ones that followed, turned Lockerbie into a byword for international terror. Pan Am Flight 103′s nose cone, lying on its side just across from the Tundergarth church’s moss-streaked graveyard, became the disaster’s unforgettable symbol.
Ever since, the town of about 4,000 has been trying to heal and draw a veil over the tragedy that just happened to take place above it.
“It’s over 20 years ago, but it’s still very real,” said Moira Mortimer, the church’s treasurer. She recalled the warm food she and others cooked for the workers hunting for corpses, and the red blankets local farmers used to cover the bodies of the pilot and co-pilot.
The past can be difficult to leave behind, particularly when the present butts in.
In recent weeks, the regime of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, which years later would accept responsibility for the bombing, has unraveled. Armed conflict has spread throughout the North African country. International
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