Families Await News on Missing Plane*

Sunday May 6, 2007 6:46 PM

By TOM MALITI

Associated Press Writer

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) - Kezzia Musimbi Kadurenge clutched a crumpled
tissue and wailed for her youngest child, who was a flight attendant on
the Kenya Airways flight that crashed in a foggy and remote central
African rainforest.

``Oh my last born, my last born, where am I going to go?'' Kadurenge
said Sunday of her son Cyprian. ``I'm finished.''

Relatives in Kenya huddled at home or crisis centers while searchers
struggled to reach the area in Cameroon where Nairobi-bound Flight 507
is thought to have crashed Saturday. In Cameroon, some made their way to
the search area, which has few roads and is dotted by small villages.

``I don't know what to do. I'm just terribly confused. My younger sister
boarded this plane that is supposed to have crashed. I hope we can still
find her alive,'' said Innocent Bonu, a lawyer from the southwestern
town of Buea in Cameroon.

Infrastructure is poor in Cameroon's interior, with much of the search
area accessible only by dirt tracks that turn to impassable mud in the
rainy season.

Cyprian Kadurenge's brother, Bernard, said he was frustrated with the
slow pace of the search.

``Perhaps people on that end may not have moved as fast as it should
have been required to mount the rescue operation,'' he said.

Airport officials said they had honed in on the site. But the area spans
an immense swath of Cameroon's dense forest, and aviation authorities
expressed frustration at not yet finding any sign of wreckage.

The family of another flight attendant, 22-year-old Lydia Mocheche
Nyakweba, was struggling with the uncertainty, said her brother, Mark.

``But I can tell you Lydia is courageous and a fighter, and if she is
not injured, then she will surely survive,'' he said from the family's
Nairobi home, which was packed with dozens of family and friends.

Lydia won beauty pageants during her years at Moi University, he said,
where she majored in sociology and graduated in August.

``We grew up together, went to the same university, and partied hard
together every time she flew down to Mombasa,'' a city on Kenya's coast,
he said.

Lydia Nyakweba's father, Samson Nyakweba, said he refused to give up hope.

``We are praying for a miracle,'' he said.

Cameroonian Louis Roger Ouandji, whose son, 27-year-old Pierre
Christian, was on the flight, said he was preparing for the worst news.

``I am a staunch Christian and people have been telling to believe in
miracles,'' he said. ``But I do not want to deceive myself.''

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Associated Press Writer Tom Odula contributed to this report.