The Egyptian Embassy in Addis Ababa is following up with Ethiopian authorities to recover the bodies of the six Egyptians on the fatal Ethiopian Airlines crash, said Yasser Mahmoud Hashim, Assistant Foreign Minister for Consular Affairs and Egyptian Expatriates.
All 157 people on-board, including eight crew members and a number of senior international environmental officials, were killed in the crash.
The people of Beheira’s Wahat (Oasis) area grieved the death of Doaa Atif Abdel Salam, a researcher at the Desert Research Center, who was confirmed to have boarded the plane.
In Beheira as well, the village of al-Abqaeen mourned Abdel Hamid Farrag, another researcher at the Desert Research Center among the victims of the incident.
Dr. Ashraf Khalifa, the head of the agricultural sector, also announced the death of Dr. Ashraf Turki, head of classification at the Institute for Plant Protection.
Other victims include senior researcher at the Plant Protection Research Institute Ashraf Torky, freelance translators Suzanne Abualfarj and Esmat Arnasa, and a programmer at Banque Misr Nasser Fatehy Douban.
Hashim explained that recovering their bodies is expected to continue until the end of this week, and that the process for verifying the identities of the victims is expected to take no less than three weeks, during which international expertise would be used.
The Ethiopian Airlines will transport the bodies to Cairo while the Egyptian Embassy in Addis Ababa works to obtain death certificates for the victims, in coordination with the relevant authorities in Ethiopia, Hashim said.
Investigators retrieved the plane’s black box at the scene and the Ethiopian Civil Aviation Agency investigators inspected the crash site to collect as much evidence as possible, joined by a technical team from Boeing, Ethiopian TV news reported.
Ethiopian Airlines Chief Executive Tewolde GebreMariam confirmed that the investigation would be carried out in partnership between Ethiopian and US investigators.
The US Transportation Security Administration announced the dispatch of a team of investigators charged with providing assistance to the investigations.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
