Eindhoven (Netherlands): A nine-year-old
Dutch boy, the sole survivor of the Libyan plane crash,
returned to the Netherlands on Saturday, three days after the
disaster killed his parents, brother and 100 others, the Dutch
tourism federation said.
"The plane with the surviving boy has landed" at the
Eindhoven military air base in the southern Netherlands, ANWB
spokesman Markus van Tol said to a news agency.
Ruben van Assouw "was taken in an ambulance with doctors
to hospital," said Van Tol, who declined to say where the boy
would be treated "for privacy reasons."
Foreign ministry officials declined to say anything about
the boy`s arrival.
Dutch news agency ANP said the plane transporting the boy
landed around 2:15 pm (local time), after which he was moved
to an ambulance with blacked out windows.
Every effort was made to hide the boy from the sight of
journalists and onlookers, the agency said.
Ruben had been accompanied on the flight from Matiga
military airfield in the Libyan capital by his uncle, aunt and
the Libyan doctor who had been treating him.
"He`s a very special patient. He is talking and in good
health. I will stay (in the Netherlands) for as long as
necessary," Dr Siddiq ben Dilla said to a news agency before the Cessna Citation Libyan air ambulance took off.
Police prevented photographers from approaching as Ruben
was taken from hospital by stretcher, covered in a blue
blanket and with a black cap on his head and scarf covering
his face, to the ambulance for the journey to the airport.
The boy`s aunt and uncle said yesterday that Ruben now
knows that his mother, father and 11-year-old brother died in
Wednesday`s crash at Tripoli airport, whose cause remains
unknown.
The Afriqiyah Airways Airbus A330 flight from
Johannesburg in South Africa had disintegrated on landing.
PTI
