Comoros crash survivor welcomed back home in Paris

LE BOURGET, France — A severely bruised young girl believed to be the only survivor of an Indian Ocean plane crash flew back Thursday to Paris, where she was embraced gently by her father, who tried to lift her spirits with a joke.

Bahia Bakari, 14, returned to France from the Comoros Islands on a French government plane. The Falcon-900 jet with medical facilities left the archipelago nation, a former French colony, and arrived at Le Bourget airport just north of Paris.

Yemenia Flight 626 crashed Tuesday morning off Comoros amid heavy winds. Bahia, described by her father as a fragile girl who could barely swim, spent over 13 hours in the water clinging to wreckage before she was rescued. She was found suffering from hypothermia, a fractured collarbone and widespread bruises to her face, her elbow and her foot.

The other 152 people on the plane, including her mother and others from France's large Comoran community, are presumed dead.

Anger over the crash ran high Thursday in France's Comoran community. In Marseille, hundreds of shouting demonstrators tried to block passengers from boarding a Yemenia airlines flight to Moroni, the Comoros capital. Police broke up the protest but there were no injuries.

"We don't want any more Yemenia flights as long as justice has not been done," said Farid Solihi, president of "SOS Trips to the Comoros," a group seeking to draw attention to what they call poor conditions on Yemenia flights.

In the Comoros, French and U.S. ships and officials directed the search for survivors. Alain Baulin, a commander with the French Foreign Legion, said military planes spotted what appear to be life jackets floating in the sea Thursday and divers were sent to the scene.

Television station France 2 carried a brief interview with Bahia on the plane coming home Thursday. She appeared dazed and gave mostly one-word answers. Asked how she felt, the teenager, who could barely open one of her black-and-blue eyes, replied faintly "Well."

When asked if she is worried, she said: "A little bit, a little bit."

One of the medical workers accompanying her on the flight told France 2 that Bahia had not talked to them about what happened.

Bahia's father, Kassim, met her as she arrived, saying he was relieved and overjoyed to see his daughter even as he mourned his wife.

"It was very powerful," he said of his reunion with Bahia. He said he asked her, "'How are you? Was the return trip OK?' ... We joked a little, the two of us."