Widow wants to bury Bob Marley's remains in Ethiopia. Check details of the "new funeral".

Rita Marley, widow of singer and songwriter Bob Marley, said this Wednesday (12) that she intends to exhume her husband's remains in order to rebury them in a "spiritual resting place" in Ethiopia. The new funeral is being prepared for a date yet to be defined, after celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the composer's birth, which will take place throughout February in Ethiopia. Both the church and the Ethiopian government have expressed support for the project, Rita told the Associated Press. "We are working to bring the remains to Ethiopia," said Rita, who was part of the first female backing choir in Marley's band, The Wailers. "It is part of Bob's personal mission." Bob Marley was born in Saint Ann, Jamaica, in 1945 and died of cancer in 1981. Rita said Marley will be buried 250 km south of Addis Ababa (capital of Ethiopia), in the city of Shashemene, where several hundred Rastafarians have lived since receiving land from the last Ethiopian emperor, Haile Selassie. Hundreds of thousands of Jamaicans adopted Selassie as the embodiment of God and the messiah of the Rastafari religion, whose name comes from the combination of the title Ras (leader) and Selassie's birth name, Tafari Makonen. Bob Marley was one of the most prominent devotees of Rastafarianism, a faith in which followers preach communion with nature, let their hair grow without cutting or combing it into large strands known as dreadlocks, and smoke marijuana as a sacrament. "Bob's entire life is centered on Africa and not Jamaica," said Rita, the singer born in cuba who married Marley in 1966. "How can you trade a continent for an island? He has the right for his remains to be in a place where he would want them to be. That was his mission. Ethiopia is his spiritual resting place," Rita said. In partnership with the African Union and UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund), Rita organized celebrations in Ethiopia, including a concert to be held in Addis Ababa on February 6, the anniversary of Marley's birth. The month-long celebration, named "Africa Unite" - after one of Marley's songs - aims to raise funds for poor families in Ethiopia. The Marley Family, Senegalese artists Baaba Maal and Youssou N'Dour, Angelique Kidjo from Benin, and other African and reggae artists will perform at the show, which will be televised across Africa and other continents.

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