Updated at 1.13pm with video
“We have lost one of our brothers,” President Emeritus Marie-Louise Coleiro Preca told a crowd gathered to honour the memory of a migrant murdered earlier this month.
Lassana Cisse was walking home on the evening of April 6 when he was shot by a man driving a Toyota Starlet. Almost a month later, police have yet to find the killer or establish a motive, with investigators not ruling out the possibility of it having been a racially-motivated attack.
Sixty-four organisations and around 100 activists gathered in memory of the 44-year old man on Saturday.
A sombre crowd met in Ħal Far, carrying flowers and holding pictures of Mr Cisse. They laid flowers on the side of the Triq il-Ġebel, where he was killed.
Some migrants who joined the vigil looked on in melancholy, clearly still moved by the murder.
Watch: A hit-and-run went unnoticed, until a murder on the same road
Aside from President Emeritus Coleiro Preca, MEP candidates Arnold Cassola, Michael Briguglio and Cyrus Engerer were also present.
'Not a single bad word'
Friends of Mr Cisse said he was a gentle and kind man. “You cannot say one bad thing about him,” Ousmane Dicko, who had known Mr Cisse since 2011, said.
“He respected me like a brother,” he added. “The last I spoke to him was two weeks before, when he came to my wife’s shop to see how we are,” Mr Dicko said.
Addressing the vigil, reverend Kim Hurst said the activists had gathered to make peace. Change is made when people stand together, Rev. Hurst said.
Father Mark Cachia, representing the Catholic community, said the people gathered at Triq il-Ġebel wanted to ensure those left grieving or in fear were not alone.
They wanted to stand tall in the face of hostility and cold-heartedness, he said.
The crowd held a one-minute silence in memory of Mr Cisse.