The Emigrants' Commission will be offering Mass for the repose of the soul of Karmen Mikallef Buhagar tomorrow at 5.30 p.m. at Dar l-Emigranti in Valletta.

Ms Mikallef Buhagar was born in Alexandria, Egypt, of Maltese parents and died in London on January 23 aged 84. Her grandparents had emigrated to Egypt 150 years ago.

Although educated in Egypt, she was a great fan of the Maltese language and fully appreciated the work carried out in Egypt by Ix-Xirka ghat-Tixrid tal-Qari Malti (the league for the dissemination of Maltese reading) in that country.

She held Malta's national poet Dun Karm in high esteem. One of the photographs she was fond of showed her collecting money for the Maltese In Egypt Refugee Fund which assisted those Maltese who wanted to emigrate to Australia and Canada but could not afford it.

Ms Mikallef Buhagar donated to the Emigrants Commission's Emigrants Museum the clock her grandmother had taken with her when she migrated to Alexandria, the flag of the Maltese club in that city and the bugle used by the scouts there.

Ms Mikallef Buhagar left Egypt in 1956 and settled in England. Like other Maltese residing in Egypt at that time she was not allowed to migrate to Malta.