Hunt plants tree at UK embassy in memory of Ethiopian Airlines crash victims

Jeremy Hunt has planted a tree at the British embassy in Ethiopia in memory of the victims of the Ethiopian Airlines disaster in March.

The Foreign Secretary said he was “devastated” that nine Britons were among the 157 people killed in the crash.

British ambassador Alastair McPhail joined Mr Hunt as he planted the tree at the embassy in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital.

Mr Hunt said: “We were obviously devastated that nine Brits lost their live in the ET302 crash, but actually, when you talk to the staff here, nearly everyone had a friend or family member that was involved in that.

“So we were really wanting to commemorate the people of over 30 countries who lost their lives when that tragedy happened.

“We also wanted to thank staff here, because there’s an awful lot of very challenging work that has to be done in terms of contact with relatives, and we also had two DVI (disaster victim identification) experts from Kent, who have spent the last few weeks doing the incredibly difficult job of sifting through body remains to try and get DNA samples, so I wanted to thank them personally for that work.”