Sole crash survivor not told family is dead

Ed Kronenburg identified the boy as Ruben van Assouw, 9, and said his mother, father and older brother Enzo, 11, all apparently died in the crash of a Libyan airliner on Wednesday as it was landing in Tripoli. He said the family had been on vacation in South Africa to celebrate the parents’ 12 1/2-year wedding anniversary — a Dutch tradition. The flight was arriving from Johannesburg.

Ruben was awake and talking, but dizzy from anaesthesia after undergoing surgery.
An uncle and an aunt of the boy arrived in Tripoli on a government plane, from where they were taken to the hospital “to make sure that Ruben will see family faces next to his bed”. He recognised them and smiled when they entered his room.

He underwent surgery for multiple fractures. Dr Hameeda al-Saheli, the head of the paediatric unit at the Libyan hospital where he was treated, told the official Libyan news agency on Thursday that the boy is breathing normally and his vital organs are intact.