Plane crash survivor Bahia Bakari heading home to Paris
 Going home ... the only survivor of the Yemenia A310 crash, Bahia Bakari, is flying home to her father / AFP |
- Crash survivor heading home to France
- French Government flying her home
- Has broken collar bone, burns to knee
BAHIA Bakari, 12, the only known survivor of Tuesday's air crash off the Comoros islands that killed 152 people, is flying home to her father in Paris in a French government aircraft.
"Little Bahia is in the plane," French Cooperation Minister Alain Joyandet, in whose aircraft she was returning to the French capital, said today.
"Doctors consider there is no problem for her to be repatriated" despite a broken collar bone and burns to the knee.
Bahia was rescued 10 hours after the Yemenia airlines Airbus A310 crashed into the Indian Ocean on Tuesday, killing all 152 others on the flight to Moroni - including her mother.
Speaking on French radio station RTL not long after meeting Bakari, Mr Joyandet said that, due to her state of shock, she was only able to recall in fragments the final moments of the flight.
"She said that, at a point in time, instructions were given to passengers to strap themselves in," he said.
"She said that afterwards, she felt something like electricity - that was the term she used."
The Associated Press reports Kassim Bakari spoke to his daughter by phone. He said she was ejected and found herself beside the plane.
"She couldn't feel anything, and found herself in the water. She heard people speaking around her but she couldn't see anyone in the darkness," Mr Bakari said on France's RTL radio.
"She's a very timid girl, I never thought she would escape like that."
'Stop the planes of death'
In Marseille, angry Comorans delayed a Yemenia flight from Paris and forced travel agents to shut down in fury at the crash. France's large Comoran community has been plunged into mourning by the Yemenia A310 crash, but grief has turned to anger as questions mounted over why the 19-year-old jet - banned from French airspace due to "irregularities" - was allowed to carry passengers who originated in Paris onwards from Sanaa.
Comorans in France say they warned French authorities repeatedly that flights to their home islands were not safe, setting up a protest group, SOS Voyage aux Comores (SOS Travel to Comoros), last year to demand action.
"Let's stop flying trash cans, stop planes of death," said Farid Soilihi, the group's head, during a protest on Wednesday in the Mediterranean port of Marseille, home to a large Comoran community of 80,000 people.
Around 100 protesters forced two Marseille travel agents selling Yemenia tickets to shut down on Wednesday.
Mourning relatives later massed in front of the Comoran consulate in Marseille and were locked in a tense standoff with police.
"It hurts to see riot police at the door of the consulate, when we are living this tragedy. We don't understand it," said Abdallah Ibrahim.
One protester, Arafa Mbae, accused French authorities, health officials and Yemenia of failing the families of the victims, who include 66 French nationals and many French-Comorans.
"We want Yemenia to put us in decent planes to transport people straight to the Comoros for the mourning period," said the 37-year-old, who lost a brother-in-law and a close friend in the accident.
"There is zero support for the families, nothing is being done."
"We want help for these families to get to the funeral, like what happened for Brazil because we are not second class French citizens," said M'Saidi Mohamed, referring to the families of the victims of Air France flight 447.
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