'Need to bring my babies home’: Kin of Air India plane crash victims slam UK govt over ‘no support'

The kin of a UK family — who died in the doomed Air India flight — have expressed disappointment with the British government, alleging that the British Foreign Office has not extended support to the victims’ families, despite there being 53 British nationals on the flight.

Marriam Ali Syed, her husband Javed, and their two children, Zayn, 5, and Amani, 4, were among the 242 people on board the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner bound for London, which crashed into a doctor's hostel near Ahmedabad on Thursday.

Speaking with The Telegraph, Syed's sister-in-law, Yasmine Hassan, said that Syed, 44, and her family were returning from a vacation in India. She added that Syed worked for the London department store Harrods.

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Hassan reportedly told the British newspaper that Sadaf Javed, Syed’s older sister who lives in London, wants to travel to Ahmedabad but has not received any support from the UK government.

“My sister-in-law, who is one of the passenger’s actual sisters, is saying, ‘I need to get to India. I need to get there as soon as possible. I need to bring my babies home’,” Hassan said, according to The Telegraph.

On Thursday, Air India said it has set up friends and relatives assistance centres at the Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Delhi, and Gatwick airports “to provide support and take care of the needs of the families and loved ones of those on flight AI171.”

Read | Ahmedabad plane crash: British national wanted to eat Jambura fruit, visited India for just 9 days. He never returned

“These centres are facilitating the travel of family members to Ahmedabad,” the airline’s statement continued.

Hassan told The Telegraph that the British Foreign Office hasn’t provided any similar support when it comes to flying relatives to Ahmedabad.

“I called the UK Foreign Office to say, ‘We’ve checked online and we can see that Air India has arranged two flights to help people from other parts of India get to Ahmedabad to be with their families. Is the UK doing anything like that?’” Hassan recalled.

Hassan was told by someone at the Foreign Office that they were unaware of any such arrangements.

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“So then I asked, ‘Is there anyone I can speak to? Someone who might know if they’re waiving visa requirements or offering fast-track visas, or if any emergency flights are being put on?’ Again, she just said, ‘No,’” Hassan added.

She told The Telegraph that she understands why British government officials may not have all the answers yet, acknowledging that such situations take time. However, she expressed anger over what she sees as a clear lack of support from the government.

“We really think people need to know that we’ve had no support – and they’re British citizens. Yet no one from the Government has contacted us to ask, ‘Can we do anything to help?’” Hassan said.

Meanwhile, around 200 relatives of the crash victims have provided DNA samples at Ahmedabad Civil Hospital to aid in the identification process, according to reports by CNN and The New York Times.