Kenyan Family Loses Five Members in Ethiopian Airlines Plane Crash

A Nakuru family is mourning the death of five of their members who perished after an Ethiopian Airlines plane crashed on Sunday morning.

The five include a mother, her three children and their grandmother who hail from Kwa Amos Village in Bahati Constituency.

The family says the five were returning home from a trip to Canada when the Boeing 737-800 MAX jet crashed six minutes after leaving Ethiopia's Bole International Airport.

None of the 157 people, including 149 passengers and 8 crew members abroad the flight survived.

Kenya has the highest number of casualties at 32 among the 33 countries that had citizens aboard the Nairobi-bound flight.

Canada lost 18 of its citizens followed by Ethiopia (9), US (8), China (8), Britain (7), France (7), Egypt (6) Netherlands (5), Slovakia (4) and Sweden (3).

Spain, Israel, Morocco, and Poland lost two nationals each while Belgium, Indonesia, Ireland, Mozambique, Norway, Saudi, Sudan, Somalia, Serbia, Togo, Uganda, Yemeni, Nepal, and Nigeria lost one each.

Also on the ill-fated plane was another Nakuru county resident identified as Sister Florence Yongi — a Catholic nun who had been serving in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Transport Cabinet Secretary James Macharia says the government will fly to Ethiopia the next of kin of each of the 32 Kenyan victims who died to help in the process of identifying the bodies.

CS Macharia says 25 out of the 32 affected families have already been contacted.

Ethiopian Airlines has offered to fly back home bodies of the victims once the verification process is completed.