Appeal letter for holiday refusal

Hello there,

I am looking for assistance in drafting an appeal letter for my holiday refusal request. I have requested a holiday from my employer for a period of 4 weeks to attend a very important family event in Africa. But due to the following reasons given by my manager my request has been turned down " I cannot authorise your holiday request this time around because of your poor absence record and beside I don't believe that you may come back if you take all your holidays in the first month of new working season". It is true my recent attendance have not been good due to personal/family issues but that was never the case before. I have been working for this company for the last 5 years and my previous attendance record was perfect up until 6 or so months ago. So, for my boss to use this reason for refusing my request I found that very harsh, especially due to the reason that I gave for my holiday request (I am attending a remembrance day and a burial for my family members whom died a while ago due to a civil war that happened in my country.)

I am now preparing an appeal which should go to the HR manager and I would like to have a proper written letter which should give me a chance for my HR manager to approve my request. I am not quite sure but I guess in such circumstances like mine there are some legal reasons why my request should not be turned down just for the reasons given above. Please, if anyone out there has capacity of helping me I would like all help I can get at the moment.

I look forward to all your help and suggestions.

Best Regards,

Apollo