The Interpol incident response team has used DNA matching to identify all 157 victims of the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash on 10 March.

Flight ET301 from Addis Ababa to Nairobi crashed near Bishoftu, killing all passengers and crew, who were from 35 different countries.

Among the victims were 32 Kenyans, 18 Canadians, nine Ethiopians and eight Americans.

Victims

Six months on, all of the victims on board the Boeing 737 Max have been identified.

The aircraft nosedived into farmlands with such force that only fragments of those who died could be found.

The Interpol team co-ordinated the disaster victim identification (DVI) response and the ante-mortem data supplied by member countries.

DNA materials from victims’ families was centrally collected and sent for analysis to a specialised laboratory.

Mission

The 50-day mission involved 100 DVI experts from 14 countries in Africa, the Americas and Europe.

A total of 48 victims were identified positively by their fingerprints.

“In the wake of such a tragedy, the accurate identification of the victims is of immense importance to the families who are suffering,” said Interpol Secretary General Júrgen Stock.