A nine-year-old Dutch boy, the sole survivor of the Tripoli plane crash that killed 103 people, lost his parents and brother in an horrific end to a dream African safari, officials said Thursday.
The Dutch foreign ministry confirmed on Thursday that the boy was from the Netherlands and gave his name as Ruben while declining to reveal his surname to protect the family’s privacy.
“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 told AFP, adding that the boy was doing “reasonably well”.
“He is not in a critical condition.”
A daily regional newspaper said the boy was probably Ruben van Assouw.
The Brabants Daily quoted his grandmother An van de Sande as saying the boy had been on a South African safari with his brother Enzo (11) mother Trudy (41) and father Patrick (40) to celebrate the couple’s wedding anniversary.
“We don’t understand. It’s like we’re in a film,” Van de Sande said.
The foreign ministry later confirmed that the survivor’s father, mother and 11-year-old brother were among 70 Dutch citizens who perished when an Afriqiyah Airways plane from Johannesburg disintegrated on landing around 6:00 am (0400 GMT) at Tripoli airport on Wednesday.
Prommersberger said an uncle and an aunt of the boy arrived in Tripoli on a government plane around 9:00 am (0700 GMT), from where they were taken to the hospital “to make sure that Ruben will see family faces next to his bed”.
“He smiled to them”, fellow ministry spokesperson Francesco Mascini later said about the reunion.
The boy would be flown to the Netherlands “as soon as his medical condition allows”.
The boy’s doctor said earlier that Ruben had come round after surgery for smashed legs and was in a stable condition, but confused.
“The child underwent several rounds of surgery to his legs. He had simple fractures and double fractures,” the doctor said on Libyan state television, which also showed pictures of the boy’s legs in casts.
“He woke up (late Wednesday night) and is in good condition,” the doctor said.
The Dutch tour operators federation, ANWB, said it had sent a team to Tripoli from Brussels on Thursday that included a trauma psychologist and an intensive care nurse to assess the boy’s condition and bring him home.
“Their task is to assess the boy’s psychological and physical condition, to see how he can be brought back to the Netherlands, and when,” spokesperson Ad Vonk said.
Forensic experts and consular staff arrived in Tripoli on Thursday morning to help identify the dead and provide support on the ground, added Mascini.
The Dutch Safety Board, an autonomous investigative body, meanwhile said it had sent two investigators on the government plane to “observe” the Libyan investigation into the crash.
“They may do no independent investigation”, a statement said, but were allowed under international regulations to visit the crash site and have access to all the evidence.
Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende and Foreign Minster Maxime Verhagen were meeting with next-of-kin of the 70 victims on Thursday afternoon, a ministry spokesperson said. –Sapa-AFP