Blog details Libya plane crash survivor's safari with family

Details of a dream safari holiday enjoyed by the Van Assouw family before the fatal plane crash that killed all 103 passengers except nine-year-old Ruben van Assouw emerged yesterday in his father's travel blog.

Ruben is recovering in hospital, surrounded by flowers with a stuffed orange Tigger under his arm, not knowing his parents and brother died in the disaster on Wednesday as the family returned to the Netherlands from South Africa.



Ruben has spoken briefly to his aunt and uncle, who flew to his bedside after he was found, still strapped to his seat, semiconscious and bleeding from wounds to his legs, about half a mile from the tail section of the Afriqiyah Airways Airbus 330-200 which came down short of the runway in Tripoli, the Libyan capital.

"He's awake. He's talking. He is listening," a Dutch foreign ministry official, Ed Kronenburg, said after visiting the boy. "Of course he also sleeps quite a lot because he got anaesthesia and is still a bit dizzy."



Ruben and his 11-year-old brother, Enzo, had travelled with their parents, Trudy and Patrick, who were celebrating their 12-and-a-half-year wedding anniversary, a Dutch tradition.

Patrick van Assouw, 40, set up his blog before the family holiday began. "The boys have been counting the days and minutes and can't wait. Just three more nights' sleep, boys!," he wrote in an entry dated 23 April.