Saudi victim was poet's brother
The Irish man shot dead in Saudi Arabia yesterday was the brother of well-known poet Rita Ann Higgins, it emerged today.
Anthony Christopher Higgins, 63, from Mervue in Galway is survived by his wife Joan and two children.
His brother Joe is the chairman of Galway airport and another brother Máirtín is the manager of the Mervue United soccer team.
Mr Higgins was working for a Saudi-owned construction company called Rocky for Trade and Construction in the capital, Riyadh.
He was killed when at least two armed men stormed into his office and began shooting.
A close family relative who did not wish to be named said the family was devastated by the death.
“We are very upset at this time as you can imagine,” she added.
Mervue parish priest Fr Willie Cummins expressed sympathy to the Higgins family, who he said were well-known and well-respected in the local area.
“It’s a terrible tragedy for the whole family, especially when it happened so far away from home.
“Tony should have been looking forward to a long and happy retirement but instead he was the victim of this terrible attack.”
Galway Labour TD Michael D Higgins also expressed sympathy to the Higgins’ family.
“It is a horrific event and it is quite mindless. It’s just tragic that someone who was in the evening of his life and should be looking forward to his retirement had to die in this way.”
The Department of Foreign Affairs has advised Irish citizens against non-essential travel to Saudi Arabia. It said citizens living in the country should maintain the highest levels of security.
Mr Higgins said it was sad that an Irish passport, which had so many positive associations with the work of Irish UN peacekeepers, no longer conferred immunity in the Middle East.
“After the war in Iraq, the entire region has descended into lawlessness. As a US congressman said, the illegal invasion of Iraq was the equivalent of putting up a recruiting poster for every group that was agitating in the region,” he said.
He urged the Department of Foreign Affairs to provide Mr Higgins’ family with the full information about his death.
Mr Higgins was the second Irish national shot dead by Saudi militants in two months in what appears to have been another attack targeting Western nationals.
BBC cameraman Simon Cumbers, 36, from Navan in Co Meath, was shot and killed while filming a militant’s family home in Riyadh on June 6.
