Egypt

Vucic offers condolences over Russian passenger jet crash

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic on Saturday offered his condolences to Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev.

Vucic in this way reacted to the news that a Russian passenger jet had crashed in Egypt, killing all 224 people on board.

Russian airline Kogalymavia, which operated the Airbus A321 that crashed in Egypt's Sinai peninsula on Saturday, has blamed the crash on a midair mechanical impact.

According to a senior manager of the company, the crash resulted from a major damage caused to the airplane's frame in flight.

Dmitry Peskov, spokesperson of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said that no possible causes of the Saturday's crash of a Russian airplane in Egypt should be ruled out.

According to him, no possible causes should be ruled out for the moment as the investigators were only starting their work.

Some of the biggest airlines in the world - Emirates, Lufthansa and Air France - decided to suspend flights over the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, after a Russian airplane crashed on Saturday leaving all 224 people on board dead.

Lufthansa and Air France were the first to take the measure, announcing hours after the incident  they would suspend flights over the region.

Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic on Saturday offered his condolences to Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev.

Vucic in this way reacted to the news that a Russian passenger jet had crashed in Egypt, killing all 224 people on board.

The Kogalymavia-operated Airbus A321 (Flight 9268) fyling from Sharm el-Sheikh to St. Petersburg disappeared from radar screens at 6.14 a.m. It crashed near the town of Hasna in the north of the Sinai Peninsula with no survivors among the 224 passengers and crew members, aged from 10 months old to 22 years.

Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras called Russian President Vladimir Putin and expressed Greek people’s deepest condolences for the death of hundreds of Russians in yesterday’s plane crash in Egypt.

During their phone conversation, the two leaders also spoke of the need for an effective and human approach on the refugee issue and the need to resolve the Syrian crisis.

At least there major airlines, Emirates, Lufthansa and Air France, announced that they will stop flying over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula after the Russian commercial plane crashed there killing all 224 passengers and crew.

An Islamic State affiliate group operating in Egypt has claimed responsibility for the airplane crash of Russian passenger Airbus 321 belonging to Kogalymavia airlines in the Sinai peninsula. Islamic militants, waging an insurgency in the area, released a statement:

“The soldiers of the caliphate succeeded in bringing down a Russian plane in Sinai.”

Bulgarian President Rosen Plevenliev and Prime Minister Boyko Borisov expressed condolences to their Romanian and Russian counterparts over the two recent tragic events, which befell the citizens of the two countries.

An explosion and fire engulfed a nightclub in the Romanian capital of Bucharest on Friday, which left 27 people dead and hundreds injured.