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Toronto: The mother of a Canadian killed while secretly fighting Islamic State militants in Syria says she’s relieved she’ll finally be able to lay her son to rest months after his death.
Tina Martino says a funeral will be held at St. Andrew’s United Church in Niagara Falls, Ont., on Wednesday for her 24-year-old son, Nazzareno Tassone.
She says Tassone’s body, which was repatriated just over a week ago, will first travel from Toronto down the Highway of Heroes.
Martino says the memorial will take place exactly a year after her son left home and exactly six months after his death – a coincidence she says she was shocked to discover.
Tassone was killed on Dec. 21 in the city of Raqqa while fighting militants associated with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, known as ISIL.
The young man had told his family that he was going to Iraq to teach English, but he secretly slipped into Syria to join forces with a U.S.-backed Kurdish group called the YPG.
