General Cheik Oumar Diarra ECOWAS

Ecowas official dies in crash
23/10/2005 21:17 - (SA)
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Lagos - The second most senior official in the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas), General Cheik Oumar Diarra, was killed in a Nigerian airliner crash, his wife said on Sunday.
Earlier a spokeswoman for the 15-nation group told AFP that Diarra had survived the crash.
The Malian official was the bloc's deputy executive secretary for political affairs, defence and security and was one of a group of Ecowas officials on the Bellview Airlines Boeing 737 jet that crashed on Saturday on the way from Lagos to Abuja.
"They called to tell us that he is dead," Diarra's wife N'Deye Marie told AFP by telephone from the couple's home in the Malian capital Bamako.
"There was no survivor. The plane exploded in mid-air," she said.
Ecowas executive secretary Mohammed ibn Chambas called the family to offer his condolences, she added.
AFP reporter who visited the scene of the crash found a ticket bearing Diarra's name among hundreds of severed body parts and still smoking wreckage.
The general's name also appeared on a passenger flight manifest released by aviation authorities.
After a day of wildly conflicting reports from official sources, police finally confirmed that all of the 117 passengers and crew had perished.