Two fathers who lost their daughters when Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 crashed last week led a memorial service at the Kenyan embassy in Addis Ababa on Saturday.
Relatives, friends, and colleagues of the 157 people killed when the plane crashed last Sunday lit candles and held prayers during the service.
An airline spokesperson said earlier this week that no bodies will be recovered from the site because only fragmented remains survived the impact.
Trailing smoke and sparks, the Boeing 737 MAX 8 en route to Nairobi plunged into a field minutes after take-off on Sunday, killing everyone on board.
Due to the impact and ensuing fire, the identification of some remains could take weeks or months and may need to be done via dental records or DNA, an industry expert told Reuters.
The process will be complicated because the passengers came from more than 30 countries and Ethiopia has limited forensic capabilities, the expert added, asking not to be named.
Families have complained about the time it’s taking to release remains so that they can perform burial rites.
The 737 line, which has flown for more than 50 years, is the world’s best selling modern passenger aircraft.
The new MAX 8 variant, with bigger engines designed to use less fuel, entered service in 2017 and were intended to become the workhorses for airlines around the globe for decades.
Boeing Co said on Thursday it was pausing deliveries of its 737 MAX aircraft to customers following the grounding of the jetliner by the United States and around the world.
