KHARAYEB, Lebanon, 27 December 2003 — A village in southern Lebanon was plunged into mourning yesterday after at least nine of its own were killed when a Beirut-bound jet carrying mainly Lebanese expatriates crashed several thousands of kilometers away in west Africa.
In Kharayeb, a village about 30 kilometers from the border with Israel, a distraught woman ran through the streets, tearing at her clothes and wailing in anguish. A group of men, their gazes vacant, gathered in front of the mosque to listen to Qur’anic verses imploring the heavens to grant a peaceful final rest to the nine villagers among the scores of passengers confirmed dead in the Christmas Day plane crash.
At least 111 people died, most of them Lebanese nationals, when the Lebanese-owned Union Transport Africaines Boeing 727, carrying 156 passengers and seven crew, crashed on takeoff from Cotonou in the tiny West African state of Benin.
Although the crash occurred several thousand kilometers away, it was the worst in recent decades in Lebanese aviation history.
A 10th native of Kharayeb who was on the plane, Ali Hassan Dor, is still reported missing. “Kharayeb has around 5,000 inhabitants, and some 300 of them emigrated to Benin, where they work, mainly in the car trade between Germany and Africa,” village official Muhammad Ali Dor told AFP.
“Theirs was an economic success story. You can see the proof in the beautiful villas they had built here on the flanks of the hillsides,” he added with pride. But his words were tinged with sadness because he had himself lost three cousins in the accident — 24-year-old Hiba and her two brothers, aged 23 and 27.
Elsewhere in the village, women dressed in funereal black held the portrait of Mustapha Khodr, 27, another victim of the crash. “We were supposed to be celebrating his marriage,” his brother Ali explained.
Kharayeb is not the only southern Lebanese village that has been steeped in grief since the crash. The villages of Qanaweih, Zibdine and Jouaya, which is home to two of the owners of UTA, are also in mourning.
