A SECTION of the Ethiopian Airlines aircraft which crashed on Saturday off the Comoro Islands was winched on to a beach yesterday with bodies still dangling from buckled seats.
A section of the Boeing 767, which ran out of fuel and ditched into the sea killing 123 people, was dragged ashore from the spot some 500 metres off the beach where it crashed.
The aircraft was hijacked by three men, believed to be Ethiopians, en route to Nairobi and West Africa from Add is Ababa. Fifty of the 175 passengers and crew survived, including two of the suspected hijackers. Two people who survived the crash died from their injuries in hospital, airline officials said yesterday.
Ethiopian Airlines, Africa's flagship carrier, made preparations yesterday for a mass repatriation of the victims to the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, but their efforts were hindered by a lack of coffins on the Muslim island chain.
"The problem we have is that we have no coffins in the Comoros. We are a Muslim country. Possibly Ethiopian Airlines may bring some in," the commander of the Comoran gendarmerie, Mr Ismael Mognidaho, said.
Muslims bury their dead in shrouds instead of coffins, and cremation is not allowed.
Mognidaho said the authorities of the islands, lying in the Indian Ocean 300 km east of the African mainland, had no problem in principle with a mass repatriation.
Airline officials believe it will be easier for relatives to go to the Ethiopian capital than to the Comoros to identify their kin and make arrangements for the bodies.
A special plane to transport the victims was not expected to arrive in the Comoros until tomorrow.
India's honorary consul in the Comoros had asked if Hindus could be cremated immediately, in line with the religion, but the request had been turned down.
Ms Lia Belai, the public relations head of the airline, said that after proper identification and prayer services in Addis Ababa, the bodies would be transported to their respective destinations accompanied by airline officials.
She said the airline would make arrangements for those who wished to take the body of a relative direct from the Comoros.
Of the 163 passengers and 12 crew on board the plane, 145 were international travellers from some 35 countries, and 30 were Ethiopians.
The bodies that have been found are being kept in a makeshift morgue in what used to be the cold storage facilities of a meat importer. By early yesterday, only two families had arrived on the island to try to identify relatives.
Ethiopian Airlines would not be issuing a passenger list "until proper identifications were carried out and the next of kin was informed," Ms Lia said.