 |
Comoros – Yemenia plane crash
Yemenia crash victims’ families arrive in Comoros to mourn
Article published on the 2009-07-14 Latest update 2009-07-14 13:42 TU
Arrival terminal at Moroni airport
(Photo: Reuters)
Nearly 200 people arrived in Moroni, the capital of the Comoros, Monday night on a specially chartered flight from the southern French city of Marseille. They are there for a week of mourning for their relatives who died in the Yemenia plane crash off the coast on 30 June. At the airport they were greeted by friends and family, and the Comorian President.
The trip was free of charge for the 181 people flying from France to the Comoros. Chartered by Yemenia, the plane started in Paris and stopped to pick up passengers in Marseille, which has the largest population of Comorians outside of Africa. Many of the crash victims lived in the city.
Passengers were greeted by President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi and members of his government.
The visitors from France will spend a week with friends and family, mourning the tragedy. Yemenia flight 626, which was coming from Yemen, but originally left Paris, crashed into the Indian Ocean on 30 June with 153 people on board. Only one person, a 12-year-old girl, survived.
It has touched nearly everyone in the archipelago, which has a population of about 730,000.
Emergency teams from France, the Comoros, Yemen and the US are still searching through wreckage and remains. It is still unknown whether the 22 bodies that washed up on the shores of a Tanzanian island are from the crash.
 Comorans mourn as search for answers continues |
