Families of AH-5017 crash victims express anger towards Air Algeria

OUAGADOUGOU (Xinhua) - Parents of victims of Air Algeria's flight AH-5017 crash expressed anger over the manner the company was releasing information about the accident in which no one survived.

"The company has played a lot with our feelings by delaying to give us information whenever it receives it," a Burkina Faso human rights activist Halidou Ouedraogo who lost a daughter in the crash said.

Ouedraogo lamented that there was "too much contradictions" in the information given to passengers' parents by Air Algeria.

Flight AH-5017 of Air Algeria flying from Ouagadougou to Algiers crashed on Thursday morning in northern Mali with more than 100 people on board. None of the passengers from 16 nationalities survived.

Dramane Ouedraogo who lost seven family members in the crash, termed Air Algeria as "irresponsible."

"The pain of losing seven members of my family is still there, but I would wish to draw our government's attention to the behaviour of some of the companies it allows to fly in our air space. Some of them are not serious," he said.

He said since the arrival of the plane until its departure, passengers had been confronted by challenges which had not been "satisfactorily" addressed by Air Algeria.

"We even had problems with their registration system and no security measures had been put in place," he added.

Some parents of the crash victims decried lack of information on the tragedy.

"My brother died in that crash. They (Air Algeria) did not communicate any information and we still do not know what we shall do," said Kam Herve Magloire, in tears.

A representative of a Luxembourg NGO Pierre Nikiema who lost his boss in the accident said Air Algeria was not taking its work "seriously."

"I was informed very late that it is not a good airline when my boss had already boarded it. When I woke up, I learnt that the plane had crashed," he said.

On Friday, Burkina Faso authorities declared a two-day national mourning to honour the crash victims.