Somalia air crash victims laid to rest in Minsk, Vitsyebsk

The 11 Belarusians killed in a March 23 air crash in Somalia were buried in Minsk and Vitsyebsk on April 2.

Eight men were laid to rest in Minsk. Hours before the funeral ceremonies at the Uskhodnyaye and Mikhanovichy cemeteries, the bodies lay in state at a hall in the transport ministry's Aviation Department. The memorial service was attended by hundreds people, including Deputy Prime Minister Viktar Bura, Transport Minister Uladzimir Sasnowski, Deputy Transport Minister Mikalay Verkhavets and other high-ranking government officials.

The service did not include a public viewing of the bodies as the caskets were closed.

The three other men who were aboard the Il-76 cargo plane when it was shot down by a missile in the African country were buried in Vitsyebsk in northern Belarus. The bodies were laid to rest at the central cemetery's Alley of Heroes, a section reserved for soldiers fallen in wars and people killed in the line of duty.

As pilot Mikalay Pikas told BelaPAN, two more Vitsyebsk residents killed in the crash - engineer Mikhail Bahlow and Ihar Vashkevich, the pilot in command of the aircraft, - were buried in Minsk at the families' request. Mr. Bahlow turned 66 on the day of the fatal accident.

The IL-76 plane belonging to Belarus' state-run cargo airline Transaviaexport reportedly crashed after taking off from the main airport in the Somali capital Mogadishu at about 5 p.m. local time.

The plane is believed to have been downed by rebels fighting against the Somali government, their Ethiopian military allies and the African Union force since the beginning of 2007.

Transaviaexport had sent the group, which included seven crew members and four engineers, to the war-torn African country with the task of dismantling equipment from its other plane hit by a ground-fired projectile two weeks before.

The bodies were flown to Belarus only a week after the crash.