AMSTERDAM — The 9-year-old Dutch boy who miraculously survived a plane crash in Libya returned to the Netherlands aboard an airborne ambulance Saturday and was whisked away to a hospital in his hometown, where he must begin to rebuild his life without his parents or brother.
Ruben van Assouw was the sole survivor, pulled unconscious from the wreckage of an Afriqiyah Airways jetliner that plunged into the desert less than a mile from the runway in Tripoli on Wednesday, killing 103 people.
Investigators from the U.S. and other countries were on the scene of the crash near the city Saturday, trying to determine a cause. Others began identifying the dead, who include 70 Dutch nationals.
Ruben returned with an aunt and uncle aboard a flight to a military air base in Eindhoven, then was taken to St. Elizabeth Hospital in nearby Tilburg, the hometown of the Van Assouws.
Patrick, 40, Trudy, 41, and their son Enzo died in the crash.
Ruben underwent more than four hours of surgery to repair multiple fractures to his legs Wednesday, but doctors say he has been recovering well.
A statement by close relatives said the extended family will care for Ruben and asked the media to not contact them while they are grieving. Ruben was shielded from the media at the air base and hospital.
“Let’s make sure he can catch his breath peacefully in the arms of relatives,” Tilburg Mayor Ivo Opstelten said on Dutch television. The boy and his relatives need to find “a kind of balance with each other, so they can start sketching a future.”
At the Yore elementary school in Tilburg, where Enzo was in sixth grade and Ruben is in third, many students returned early from spring break to sign a condolence register for Enzo and prepare for Ruben’s eventual return.
“When he comes back — we don’t know exactly how things are going to go — but when he comes back to school, we’re going to take awfully good care of him,” said school director Elly Sebregts. “That’s the school’s job, I think.”
