TheCable

The remains of Nigerian footballer, Emmanuel Ogbu, who died in last month’s Air Algerie plane crash in Mali, would be returned home, the ministry of foreign affairs said on Thursday.

Consular director at the ministry, Mr Abdulazeez Dankano, gave the assurance while speaking with NAN.

He said that he had met the family of the deceased and the ministry had been in close consultation with the Algerian, French and Malian authorities since the crash.

“We are doing everything possible to ensure that the remains of the late footballer, Mr Emmanuel Ogbu, is brought back,” he said.

Ogbu, a professional footballer with a club in Burkina Faso, was aboard the Air Algerie flight AH5017, which crashed in Mali on July 24 with no survivors. He was on his way to Dubai to sign a new football contract.

Dankano said Algerian authorities had requested for the particulars of the victim’s relatives for possible identification of the remains before releasing the corpse.

He said France, which lost more nationals in the crash, was heading the technical aspect of the investigation on the crash, at Mali’s request.

“Bodies of victims retrieved from the crash site in a remote area in Mali have been flown to France while the incident is being investigated,” he said.

“Air Algerie contacted countries whose nationals died in the plane crash if they wanted to join the international investigation team. We forwarded that request to our aviation authority but I do not think they were part of the team.”

“But the countries whose nationals were involved in the crash have received assurances from the airline and France that crash victims would be sent home after the investigation.”

Dankano added that the ministry had also contacted the Federal Ministry of Health to assist in taking DNA samples from relatives of the Nigerian.

French experts had initially said the process of recovering and identifying those killed in the crash was tough, as they could not find “intact bodies” at the scene of the tragedy.