Charleston church to reopen for Sunday services 4 days after killing of 9 African-Americans

The historic Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in the US is set to reopen for services on Sunday, 21 June, four days after the violent shooting incident, which killed nine African-Americans.

The church will open to the public at 09:00 am local time with New York pastor Norvel Goff leading the services. The church's pastor Clementa Pinckney was among the nine killed in the shooting by suspect Dylann Roof.

Churches across Charleston will ring a bell in union exactly at 10:00 am as a mark of tribute to the victims.

Scores of people are expected to gather in the church with many travelling hundreds of kilometres to participate. South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is also set to take part in the events.

"I felt the pain and the heaviness of the nine lives that were lost. People were crying, people were upset. It's the same thing that gets perpetuated now. There's nothing new under the sun. White supremacy still exists and it consistently shows and rears its ugly head," one of the marchers, Ansley Pope, told a local news channel.

A cleaning crew worked on the building to keep it ready for the Sunday services. Members of the church entered the building on Saturday, 20 June, to oversee the arrangements. Bouquets, teddy bears and balloons are piling up outside the church to commemorate the victims.

The developments come just when a racist manifesto, possibly posted by the gunman himself, emerged online spelling out his motives of the attack.

A website, now taken down, has surfaced which carried racist images and a 2,000-word message of the alleged shooter Roof.