The remains of 28 out of 32 Kenyans who perished in the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash in March this year arrived in the country on Monday morning; seven months since the tragic incident that claimed 157 lives.
Families of the deceased converged at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport (JKIA) to receive the remains of their loved ones as a requiem mass in memory of the victims was held at the airport.
The arrival of the remains marks an end to a long await for the affected families who had earlier travelled to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for collection of DNA samples to help in body identification.
Identification of the crash victims took about six months over what Ethiopian authorities described as complexity of the process and extensive damage of the bodies.
After the families visited Addis Ababa, some of them only left with soil from the crash site to bury while others opted to wait for the identification to be completed.
One Kenyan family lost five of its members in the March 10, 2019 incident.
At least six Kenyan families have since sued giant American airplane maker Boeing following the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash.
The said families gave instructions to a consortium of Kenyan and American lawyers to demand justice for their loved ones who perished in the March 10, 2019 crash.
Passengers who perished in the crash were from 35 different nationalities with Kenyans being the majority.
Other countries that lost their citizens in the Nairobi-bound Boeing 737-800MAX flight included: Canada (18), Egypt (6), Ethiopia (9), France (7), U.S.A (8), Netherlands (5), Slovakia (4), Sweden (3), China (8) as well as Britain (7).
Spain, Israel, Morocco and Poland had 2 nationals each on the flight while Belgium, Indonesia, Ireland, Mozambique, Norway, Saudi, Sudan, Somalia, Serbia, Togo, Uganda, Yemeni, Nepal, Nigeria had one each.
