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Kenyan government, Ethiopian Airlines to cater for plane crash victims’ kin in Addis

By Amina Wako March 11th, 2019 2 min read

The Kenyan government, in conjunction with Ethiopian Airlines, will fly one representative from each family affected by Sunday’s air crash to Addis Ababa and cater for all their expenditures there.

This announcement was made in Nairobi on Monday by Transport Cabinet Secretary, James Macharia, and Ethiopian Airlines’ Kenya country manager, Yilma Goshu.

The CS revealed that out of the 32 Kenyan passengers, who were on board, the teams have managed to reach out and talk to 25 families.

“We are requesting everybody to be sensitive; some of them (the families) have been very distressed and we would like to ask you to give it the utmost sensitivity. They are grieving and we ask you to give them as much space as possible,” Macharia said.

HELP DESK

Goshu on his part said that relatives of the victims who wished to travel to Addis would be assisted and provided accommodation at Skylight Hotel near Bole International Airport.

A Kenyan delegation, led by Principal Secretary department of transport Esther Koimmet and Kenyan ambassador to Ethiopia Catherine Mwangi, met Ethiopian aviation officials on Monday morning to get an update on the accident.

Kenyan Embassy in Addis Ababa has also set up an emergency and information help desk near Bole International Airport for families and friends of victims of the ill-fated aircraft.

ASSIST FAMILIES

“We are going to set up this morning a desk inside the airport, specifically to receive Kenyan families that will be coming to Addis. We are at hand as a mission to support and assist families in whichever way we can, to process any document or any government requirement. We have shut down every other activity at the Embassy, we are going to spend time dealing with families,” Ms Mwangi said.

The Boeing 737 flight lost contact at 08:44 am local time on Sunday, six minutes after taking off from Bole International Airport in the Ethiopian capital, and went down near Bishoftu.

Most of the victims were from Kenya, although the plane was carrying passengers from around the world.