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Ethiopian Airlines Crash: What We Know About The Victims

Ethiopian Airlines Crash: What We Know About The Victims

Ethiopian Airlines said 157 passengers and crew members were killed when one of its jets crashed shortly after take-off from Addis Ababa on Sunday morning.

At least nine Britons and one Irish citizen were among the dead, as were scientists, doctors, aid workers and three members of a Slovakian MP’s family.

The Foreign Office said: “Our staff at the British Embassy in Addis Ababa are continuing to work with the relevant authorities in Ethiopia to obtain further information. We extend our deepest condolences to all those who have lost loved ones and those affected by this tragic event.”

Here is what we know so far about the victims:

Joanna Toole

Joanna Toole
HuffPost UK
Joanna Toole

Joanna Toole, a 36-year-old from Exmouth, Devon, was heading to Nairobi to attend the UN Environment Assembly when she was killed.

Her father, Adrian, described her as a “very soft and loving” woman whose “work was not a job – it was her vocation”.

“It’s just tragic that she couldn’t carry on to further her career and achieve more,” he told the BBC.

“She was very well known in her own line of business and we’ve had many tributes already paid to her.”

He also said she used to keep homing pigeons and pet rats and travelled to the remote Faroe Islands to prevent whaling.

Joseph Waithaka

Joseph Waithaka, who lived in Hull for a decade before moving back to his native Kenya, also died in the crash, his son Ben Kuria said.

Kuria paid tribute to his father, calling him “one of the humblest people that I know”.

Kuria, from south London, said of the 55-year-old: “He’s someone who really loved justice, and didn’t give up on people most people had given up on.

“He really just wanted the best for his kids. He was a father not just to us but to so many people in so many ways.”

Waithaka had dual Kenyan and British citizenship, the BBC reported.

Sarah Auffret

Polar expert Sarah Auffret
Associated Press
Polar expert Sarah Auffret

Polar expert Sarah Auffret died on the flight as she made her way to Nairobi to talk about a Clean Seas project, her Norway-based employers Association of Arctic Expedition Cruise Operators (AECO) said.

Norwegian media reported that the University of Plymouth graduate was a French-British dual national.

“Sarah was on her way to Nairobi to talk about the Clean Seas project in connection with the UN Environment Assembly this week,” an AECO statement said.

“Words cannot describe the sorrow and despair we feel. We have lost a true friend and beloved colleague.”

Foreign nationals who lost their lives in the crash:

  • Michael (Mick) Ryan, from Ireland, was also killed in the crash. The UN aid worker and engineer was employed by the UN’s World Food Programme, a leading humanitarian organisation delivering food assistance in emergencies and working with impoverished communities to improve nutrition.

  • Anton Hrnko, an MP for the nationalist Slovak National Party, said he was “in deep grief” to announce that his wife Blanka, daughter Michala and son Martin were among the dead.

  • Hospitality company Tamarind Group announced “with immense shock and grief” that its chief executive Jonathan Seex was among the fatalities.

  • German national Anne-Katrin Feigl was named as a crash victim by the International Organisation for Migration. She was en route to a training course in Nairobi as part of her role as a junior professional officer at the organisation.

  • Paolo Dieci, a founder of an aid group that works with Unicef in Africa, was also reported as among the dead.

    The International Committee for the Development of Peoples group said: “The world of international cooperation has lost one of its most brilliant advocates and Italian civil society has lost a precious point of reference.”

  • Three members of humanitarian organisation Africa Tremila, based in Bergamo, Italy, were on board. The aid group’s president Carlo Spini, his wife Gabriella Viggiani, and treasurer Matteo Ravasio were among the eight Italians killed.

  • Sicilian regional culture ministry assessor Sebastiano Tusa, an underwater archaeologist, was also reportedly on the plane.

  • Also among those killed from the WFP were Virginia Chimenti and Maria Pilar Buzzetti.

  • The African Diaspora Youth Forum in Europe said co-chairman Karim Saafi had been a passenger on the flight and had been due to represent them at a meeting with the African Union in Nairobi.

  • Professor Pius Adesamni was named as a victim by Benoit-Antoine Bacon, the president and vice-chancellor of Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.

  • Hussein Swaleh, the former secretary general of the Football Kenya Federation, was named as being among the dead by Sofapaka Football Club.

  • Abiodun Oluremi Bashua – a retired envoy who served in Iran, Austria and Ivory Coast – was killed, Nigeria’s foreign affairs ministry said.

  • Austrian media reported that three doctors who were aged between 30 and 40 and worked at hospitals in Linz had died.

  • Save the Children said its child protection in emergencies adviser Tamirat Mulu Demessie was among the dead.

  • Three of the Russians on board were tourists Yekaterina Polyakova, Alexander Polyakov and Sergei Vyalikov, the Russian Embassy in Ethiopia said. The first two were reportedly married.

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