King Felipe of Spain will lead ceremony honouring the victims of the COVID-19 pandemic

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has announced King Felipe of Spain will lead a ceremony, attended by top EU officials, on July 16 to honour the victims of the COVID-19 pandemic and health workers.

Spain is emerging from the three-month lockdown after suffering one the world’s heaviest death tolls from the disease caused by coronavirus.

Sanchez told parliament the state ceremony would honour “the compatriots who lost their lives,” as well as civil servants who had been on the frontline of the fight against the pandemic.