Crash victims' bodies found
2009-07-09 15:07
Moroni - The remains of suspected victims of last week's Yemeni airliner crash were found on Thursday by fishermen off the Comoros islands, officials said.
"We received the information at around 09:30 (06:30 GMT). A team was immediately dispatched to bring those human remains to a morgue in Moroni," Said Ahmed Said, a foreign ministry spokesperson said.
The Red Crescent society confirmed it was sending a team to Djomani, a small town in the north of the Indian Ocean archipelago's main island of Grande Comore.
"We have indeed been informed that human remains were found there. We are in the process of sending a team to the area to collect them," the society's spokesperson, Ramulati Ben Ali, said.
Survivor of the disaster
Emergency teams from France, the United States, the Comoros and Yemen have been searching for the wreckage and remains of 152 people who perished in the June 30 crash.
The Yemenia Airbus A310 which had 153 people on board plunged into the sea on June 30 as it was about to land at Moroni airport. A 12-year-old girl is the only survivor of the disaster.
According to officials in Moroni, Comoran Vice President Idi Nadhoim and Foreign Minister Ahmed Ben Said Jaffar arrived in Tanzania, north of the archipelago, on Wednesday evening.
They were scheduled on Thursday to fly to the Tanzanian island of Mafia, where the bodies of 13 suspected crash victims were discovered on the shore.