The Associated Press (AP) has explained why they did not mention Kenya and Ethiopia in a viral tweet that reported on the nationalities of the victims of the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 plane crash last Sunday.
The said tweet, which was slammed as racist, only mentioned Canadians, Chinese, Americans, Italians, Indians, French, British, Egyptians, despite Kenya having suffered the highest casualties.
But Lauren Easton, Director of Media Relations at AP, acknowledged that the agency had already reported that Kenyans and Ethiopians had died in the crash, and that the tweet was only providing additional information about the nationalities of other people on board.
However, there are no tweets on AP’s timeline to support her assertion.
She added that AP has published and plans to continue publishing stories focusing on the trauma of Kenya and Ethiopia.
The Sunday crash killed 157, 32 of them Kenyans; Canada 18, Ethiopia nine, China and Italy eight, France and Britain seven, Egypt six.