MORONI (Comoros) - THE 14-year-old girl who survived the Yemeni jetliner crash is 'doing well' in a hospital in Comoros, said a nurse.
Mohammed, a nurse at El Mararouf hospital, said doctors would release more on the girl's condition later on Wednesday. Mohammed said he cared for the girl through the night.
Girl is conscious and speaking
'She is conscious, she is speaking, but we are trying to warm her' after being pulled from cold sea waters, said Mr Ada Mansour, the examining doctor at the hospital where the girl is being treated.
Mr Mansour added that the earlier reports of a five-year-old boy surviving the crash were 'based on information received from boats near the search site. But I have not seen him.'
MORONI - THE French government plans to evacuate the teenage girl who survived the Yemenia airline crash off the Comoros coast, French Cooperation Minister Alain Joyandet told reporters here on Wednesday.
'France wants to evacuate the young girl and see how to help her father who wants to travel to the Comoros to find his wife's body,' he said.
The jetliner carrying 153 people crashed into the Indian Ocean on Tuesday as it attempted to land amid severe turbulence and howling winds. Most of the passengers were from Comoros, a former French colony.
Sgt Said Abdilai told Europe 1 radio that he rescued the girl after she was found bobbing in the water. She couldn't grasp the life ring rescuers threw to her, so Sgt Said said he jumped into the sea. A Red Cross spokesman said described the girl's condition as 'not worrisome.'
A policeman identified as one of the girl's rescuers told France's Europe 1 radio that the teenager was seen swimming in choppy waters in the middle of bodies and plane debris around 4am (0100 GMT).
'We tried to throw a life buoy. She could not grab it. I had to jump in the water to get her,' the rescuer said. 'She was shaking, shaking. We put four covers on her. We gave her hot, sugary water. We simply asked her name, village.'
The doctor who treated her at the hospital told AFP she was being cared for at the intensive care unit. 'She is conscious, she is speaking, but we are trying to warm her up because she was freezing,' the doctor, Mr Ada Mansour, told AFP. 'We are trying to get her back in shape, but we are not asking her too many questions so as not to tire her,' he said.
The girl lives in the French southern city of Marseille and was travelling with her mother to the Comoros, according to a Comoran community group in France. Mr Abdallah Ibrahim, the Marseille coordinator of the Comoros Solidarity Union, said that airport authorities in Moroni identified the girl as Bakari Baya.
'Depending on her condition, she could be evacuated to France or Madagascar,' Mr Ibrahim told AFP. The girl lives with her family, including an uncle, in Marseille's 14th district, he said.
A Comoran government spokesman also confirmed that the girl was the only survivor so far and that she was originally from the southeast village of Nioumadzaha. -- AP, AFP
