The Nation (Nairobi)
David Okwembah
12 May 2007
Nairobi — Anxiety and anger has gripped relatives of passengers and crew who perished on the Kenya Airways plane that crashed in Cameroon last Saturday.
Despite having travelled thousands of kilometres to Douala from as far away as India, Kenya and China, the relatives are yet to reach the site of the crash that is hardly 30 kilometres from their hotel rooms.
And on Thursday, they expressed their anger and frustration soon after meeting with the two ministers from the Cameroonian government.
The families agreed to meet and put pressure on the Kenya government and Kenya Airways to have them get access to the recovered body parts and the crash site. However, by yesterday nothing had taken place.
Some of the relatives who arrived in Douala on Sunday evening now want to be taken to the crash site and the military mortuary where the body parts recovered are being preserved.
Others want answers from Kenya Airways and the Cameroonian government on whether it was sensible to fly them all the way to Douala and stop them from accessing the crash site.
Bureaucratic
Robert Wamwea, son of the plane's pilot said he was very frustrated.
"We have been here since Monday and we have not been allowed to go to the crash site or even the mortuary," Robert said.
The young Wamwea reserved his choice words for the Cameroonian government which he termed bureaucratic.
"Nobody in Cameroonian government is telling us anything. There is silence everywhere," he said adding that they had been confined to the Sawa hotel in Douala which is not far away from the crash site.
"Why were we flown all the way to Douala only to be locked up at the hotel?" Robert posed.
Henry Otieno, husband of chief purser Phylis Njeri Kiiru, wondered why the Cameroon government was not allowing the families to visit the site.
We are concerned
"We want to know which parts of the plane are still submerged and how long it will take to have them recovered," Otieno said.
He also demanded that the families visit the military mortuary to identify the recovered parts.
"We want to find the measures taken to preserve the recovered body parts because we want to have them reconstructed in our respective countries before burial," he added.
The father to Allan Njenga Njoroge, a flight attendant, said; "We are concerned because we have not even reached the crash site."
Mr Njoroge said he wanted to see how operations to retrieve the bodies and property at the crash site were proceeding.
He wondered why the recovery operation was taking too long. "Some of us have not even seen the mangrove forest you are talking about," he added noting that reference to the difficulties created by the mangroves did not make sense to him.
Mr Maurice Lugadiru, a brother to Cyprian Mande Kadurenge, lamented of the frustrations in getting information on how to get to the crash site and the mortuary.
"There is no co-ordination on how things are done and that is quite frustrating," he added.
Lugadiru who told the Nation that he had instructions from his mother to have Kadurenge's body or part of it delivered to Kenya for burial, said he had been made to idle at the hotel since they arrived on Monday.
Father to Lydia Mocheche Nyakweba, said he had been frustrated by the directive barring them from going to the crash site.
He said according to Kisii customs and traditions, he needed to reach the site and carry some soil there to take back home. Mr Nyakweba said this was necessary especially if he was not able to get the body of his daughter.
Mr Fred Kiuru, who is the father of the first officer to the ill-fated plane said he was proud of his son, Andrew Wanyoike.
Reach crash site
He asked other youngsters aspiring to be pilots not to be discopuraged by the death of Andrew.
"Being a pilot is a fulfilling career if what Andrew did was anything to go by. He felt good about it," Mr Kiuru added. And a brother to the plane's flight engineer William Muia Kisilu said he was under pressure from relatives back in Kenya to get to the site.
Meanwhile, information available indicates that the relatives were due to visit the crash site yesterday afternoon.
The families were to be divided into two groups with the first visiting the site yesterday and the second one today and will be accompanied to the crash site by two doctors and a counselor.
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