President Uhuru Kenyatta was pleased after Somalia’s President Mohamed Abdullahi Farmajo phoned him to express his condolences after a Kenyan plane was shot down.
An African Express Airways plane was on Monday, May 4 reported to be shot down by Ethiopian forces just as it was about to land in Bardaale Town, Somalia.
Kenya’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday, May 5, revealed that Farmajo assured President Kenyatta that he had issued orders to Somalia’s Civil Aviation Authorities to immediately commence investigations to establish the cause of the crash.
Uhuru expressed his gratitude at Farmajo for phoning to send condolences to the families of the pilots and was also open to the invitation of Kenya’s Civil Aviation Authorities to join in the investigation.
In Mombasa, the family of the two pilots, Captain Mabruk Sherman and Omar Chiraghdin pleaded with the government to ferry their bodies for burial.
"We got news of the crash yesterday at around 5 p.m, I felt so much pain to receive such news. We ask that his body and that of the others be brought into the country for burial.
"The news that we got is that the bodies were released after the plane burst into flames. We ask the Foreign Affairs Minister to step in so that we get the bodies of our sons.
"A rocket by the Ethiopian army hit their plane in Bardaale. My son left Nairobi to go to Mogadishu, every time he leaves on Sunday he returns on Thursday.
"We are here on stand by, he last told me Somalis had closed down the airstrip and they said they will open it. Yesterday they got cargo to ferry Coronavirus medicine. His is my fourth child out of five, two daughters and three sons," said one of the pilot's father.
A family member to one of the two pilots urged the government to get to the bottom of the matter.
"I'd like to urge the government not to take this matter lightly, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Interior should establish how the deaths occurred, if they were hit by a grenade or not.
"We want to know because these are our family members and one of the pilots has a wife and children. We urge the government to immediately hand a letter to the family members in Nairobi and Kilifi to be able to get to Mombasa to meet other family members," he noted.
