Algeria survivors and dead arrive in Tokyo
Haneda Airport officials used black umbrellas to shield those getting off the government plane from the glare of cameras. Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida stood alongside officials from engineering firm JGC, which employed all the Japanese caught up in the siege, bowing deeply after the coffins were brought out from the plane's cargo hold.
The seven Japanese survivors of the Algerian hostage crisis, and nine of the 10 dead, arrived back in a shell-shocked Japan yesterday as the prime minister spoke of the nation's "deepest grief".
Haneda Airport officials used black umbrellas to shield those getting off the government plane from the glare of cameras.
Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida stood alongside officials from engineering firm JGC, which employed all the Japanese caught up in the siege, bowing deeply after the coffins were brought out from the plane's cargo hold.
Three trailers, each carrying three coffins, lined up near the plane's tail as the assembled dignitaries laid bouquets of white flowers on them. Tokyo on Thursday said it had accounted for all 10 Japanese men who had been out of contact since Islamist gunmen stormed the In Amenas gas plant in the Sahara desert over a week ago. All were dead.
Dozens of foreigners were killed during a four-day stand-off that ended in a showdown with Algerian commandos last Saturday amid reports of summary executions. Japan's death toll was the highest of any nation.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, at a meeting of his senior ministers yesterday, said the nation was in mourning for those killed.
"As a government, we again express our deepest condolences for the pain of the bereaved families," he said.