Doctors say the Dutch boy who miraculously survived a plane crash that killed 103 people in the Libyan capital, Tripoli, is in satisfactory condition after surgery on his shattered legs.
Dr Hameeda al-Saheli, the head of the paediatric unit at the Libyan hospital where the boy was treated, said on Thursday that the boy is breathing normally and his vital organs are intact.
The Dutch Foreign Ministry said that boy is a nine-year-old called Ruben from the southern Netherlands.
“A colleague from the embassy [in Tripoli] was able to speak with him. He told her he was Ruben, nine years old, from the city of Tilburg,” ministry spokesperson Christoph Prommersberger said, adding the boy was doing “reasonably well”.
“He is not in a critical condition.”
The ministry would not reveal the boy’s surname.
The Afriqiyah Airways Airbus 330-200 crashed on Wednesday as it approached the runway at the Tripoli airport after a seven-hour flight from Johannesburg.
Most of the 103 victims were Dutch, returning home after vacationing in South Africa.
South Africans killed
Meanwhile, at least 10 South Africans died in the crash, Talk Radio 702 reported Thursday.
The radio station said Libyan officials were still trying to identify 18 people from the Libyan airliner’s passenger list whose nationalities were unknown.
Authorities have not yet released the death toll of South African victims from Wednesday’s crash.
Bree O’Mara, author of the award-winning novel Home Affairs, was among the South Africans killed when the plane disintegrated just shy of the runway, the Star reported on Thursday.
She was reportedly on her way to London to sign a second book deal.
The brother of Parliament member Anchen Dreyer also died in the crash, Dreyer’s opposition Democratic Alliance party said in a statement.
South Africa’s ambassador in Tripoli has opened an emergency reception centre for the families of those who died, the Department of International Relations said on Thursday.
Spokesperson Nomfanelo Kota said it was ready to receive families who would be arriving to finalise the details of the repatriation of the remains of their loved ones.
However, the department was still working on the final verification of the names of those believed to have been on board when the plane crashed just short of the runway in the Libyan city on Wednesday. — Sapa, Sapa-AP, AFP