Half the world away, investigators are still sifting through the wreckage of a crashed Ethiopian Airlines flight in a field outside of Addis Ababa.Blackened pieces of fuselage, wings, and body — still emblazoned with the colours of the Ethiopian flag — are splayed across the crash site, along with more tangible leavings of the 157 passengers and crew aboard. At least one of the aircraft’s safety instruction cards survived. So, too, did dozens of loose cigarettes. Heaps of colourful scarves, handbags, and books sit in piles outside of the impact crater. A single shoe sitting right-side up in the dirt caught the attention of a photojournalist’s lens the day of the crash. But none of their owners survived.As aviation experts arrive from the United States and help piece together exactly what caused Flight ET302 to drop out of the sky six minutes after takeoff on Sunday, the families and friends of the 18 Canadians killed in the crash are mourning their loved ones from coast to coast to coast. For Mohamed Hassan Ali, the elder brother of Edmonton’s Amina Ibrahim Odowa — who died in the crash alongside her 5-year-old daughter, Safiya Faisal Abdulkadir Egal — it could be some time before their family is able to secure her remains.“We don’t have the body to come to a closure,” Ali said.There aren’t any burial arrangements yet for his younger sister and niece because it’s unclear when their remains will come home. Ali originally intended to fly to Ethiopia himself, but said there isn’t any reason to go right now. Ethiopian authorities have given next to no information. “At this point, there’s nothing,” he said.Read more: A family, environmentalists and humanitarians: What we know about the Canadians killed in the Ethiopian Airlines crash Toronto’s Ethiopian community prays for plane crash victimsCountries ground Boeing jets after crash in EthiopiaFew details of the crash ...
|
