The Nation (Nairobi)
David Okwembah
15 May 2007
Douala — Relatives were last evening allowed to go to KQ crash site after seven hours of consultations between Cameroonian officials and Kenya Airways officials.
Two groups of relatives, comprising about 40 people, were led to the site by Kenya Airways and Cameroon government officials.
What followed was an emotional 45 minutes during which relatives wailed, others scooped earth and collected twigs from the site where their loved ones died, to take back home with them.
The relatives were later led back to their hotels.
Earlier, a shouting match had ensued at the forest near the site of the Kenya Airways plane crash 10 days ago when the families of the victims were denied access to the venue yet again.
Standing just 500 metres from the site, the stunned family members were forced back to their vehicles by the military personnel at the edge of the forest.
Armed with wreaths which they intended to lay at the site, the families were heard cursing the Cameroonian officers whom they accused of being unreasonable.
"This is not a tourist attraction," one soldier told the shocked families as they attempted to make their way into the forest. Journalists who had been invited for the trip were allowed in but they refused to go to the crash site in solidarity with the families.
The families had been transported to the entry of the swampy forest on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean ready to walk to the venue but the Cameroonian military declined to give them access saying they had not received such instructions.
Walk to venue
The families had been kept waiting for more than four hours as frantic efforts were made to reach the Kenya Airways officials and the governor of Douala, Mr Gounouko Hawonaye, to intervene.
With the heat taking its toll on the family members, they demanded to know why they had been blocked from the site.
At one time, tempers flared when a Togolese woman demanded that she be allowed to proceed to the site because she was scheduled to leave Cameroon last night.
The military officers, led by Colonel Meka, and police officer Joachim Mtsini informed her that they had not received instructions to allow anyone to the site.
But the woman would have none of it saying they had been informed by Kenya Airways officials that they were supposed to visit the venue yesterday morning.
A shouting match then ensued between the Togolese woman before others joined in for more than 15 minutes.
Calm was only restored after one of the counsellors accompanying the group intervened by asking the military personnel to make contact with the Kenya Airways personnel in Cameroon and the governor.
The families including those from Kenya, watched in disbelief as their hopes of reaching the crash site were dashed for the third time.
The Cameroonian soldiers claimed they would only allow the families to the crash site after a new road they planned to build was complete to enable the vehicles drive to the venue.
This was the third time the families failed to reach the crash site venue more than 10 days since the plane plunged into the swampy mangrove forest in Douala.
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