September 19, (THEWILL) – The family of Remilekun Toyosi Meshioye, who died while travelling to London, en route Cairo with EgyptAir, has written to the Chairman of Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), Hon. Abike Dabiri-Erewa.
The letter with Ref: MESHICO/RTM/EGYPTAIR/23/002, signed by Mrs Olufunmilola Olaniyi-Talabi, on behalf of the Meshioye family, re-emphasised their demand from Egyptair for the incident report, CCTV footage of what transpired on board Flight MS 876 and at the Cairo airport after the flight landed.
In their response to what the General Manager of Egyptair, Mr Majdi Al Aridi, earlier told the NAICOM representative, Remilekun’s family stated that neither the Nigerian Embassy in Cairo nor the Egyptian Foreign Affairs Ministry has reached out to the family to give updates; particularly, on their actions regarding either repatriation of Remilekun’s corpse to Nigeria or the information the family has demanded already.
The family also stated that their position is that Egyptair (or any of their appointed proxies, partners, or agents) must defray the full cost of repatriation of the corpse to Lagos, Nigeria.
“The family sends (attached herewith) the medical report from Egypt (sent to the family by the Embassy of Nigeria in Cairo, Egypt), which states the place of death of Remilekun. The Doctor’s report showed that Remilekun died on board.
“She was completely unconscious, no pulse and respiratory malfunction, no response to the cardiopulmonary resuscitation” and was no longer breathing and that “the passenger was delivered to Heliopolis Hospital as a dead body.” Egyptair may wish to quarrel with the medical report, but it is unjustified for the airline to unconscionably aggravate the grief of the family with Mr Aridi’s words that “the deceased died on transit and not on board as against the claims by the family.
“We find it scandalous that the airline’s General Manager in our nation’s capital city would cryptically accuse our family of lying when he said “against the claims by the family.
By the way, the family wonders what Mr. Aridi meant by saying the deceased “died on transit and not on board,” while Egyptair is still in possession of the luggage and documents of the deceased. The unacceptable prevarication of Egyptair strengthens rather than weakens the family’s search for truth about the matter”, the family added.
Other questions raised by Remilekun’s family were, what triggered the disaster on board, how did the Egyptair cabin crew handle the situation, did the crew have the equipment required on board international flights to attend to health emergencies on board, and were such equipment used on Remilekun?
According to the family, the luggage and documents of Remilekun in possession of Egyptair should be returned to the family intact.
Anthony Awunor, is a business correspondent who holds a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Linguistics (UNILAG). He is also an alumnus of the Nigerian College of Aviation Technology (NCAT), Zaria Kaduna State. He lives in Lagos.
