20 Lebanese on Ill-Fated Algerian Plane, Including 10 Children
Several Lebanese nationals were onboard an Algerian plane that went missing Thursday during a flight from Burkina Faso to Algiers.
An official source in Lebanon told Agence France-Presse that at least 20 Lebanese nationals were on the flight, including three couples with 10 children.
Meanwhile, the Lebanese embassy in Algiers said the competent Algerian authorities had not yet informed it of any confirmed news regarding the incident other than that contact had been lost with the plane.
“There were Lebanese onboard, but there is no confirmed information until the moment,” the embassy added.
Earlier on Thursday, LBCI television reported that around 15 Lebanese citizens were on the flight, which air navigation services lost contact with 50 minutes after takeoff.
Algerian radio said 51 French citizens and 26 from Burkina Faso were among the 116 passengers on the plane which dropped off the radar as it overflew northern Mali.
Media reports identified nine Lebanese nationals on the flight as "Randa Bassam Daher and her three children, Joseph Jerjes al-Hajj, Fadi Rustom, his son-in-law Omar al-Ballan, Manji Hassan and Mohammed Akhdar."
The airline announced that the plane had gone missing in a brief statement carried by national news agency APS. It added that the company initiated an "emergency plan" in the search for flight AH5017, which flies the four-hour passenger route four times a week.
France's Transport Minister Frederic Cuvillier said that top civil aviation officials were holding an emergency meeting and a crisis cell had been set up.
"The plane disappeared at Gao (in Mali), 500 kilometers from the Algerian border. Several nationalities are among the victims," Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal was cited as saying by Algerian radio.
In neighboring Mali, amid reports of heavy storms in the region, the prime minister's office also said contact was lost around Gao over the country's restive north.
H.K./Y.R.
Source: Naharnet, Agence France Presse
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