The victims of the Ethiopia plane crash

Like any major international flight, the plane was packed with passengers from across the world. This one had professors from Kenya, aid workers from Ethiopia, a career ambassador from Nigeria and a fisheries consultant from Britain.

Some were heading to job training, others to an environmental conference. Some were simply going home.

All were passengers on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, which crashed Sunday shortly after take off, killing the 157 on board and raising questions about the safety of the aircraft model, the Boeing 737 Max 8.

On Monday, as the identities of more victims were revealed, heartache rippled through convention halls, classrooms and living rooms across the globe. Tributes flowed on social media. Colleagues observed moments of silence.

The campus of Kenyatta University in Kenya mourned the death of Isaac Mwangi, a lecturer in the department of education, communication and technology, and Agnes Gathumbi, a director of teacher professional development.

Mwangi wrote dissertations on using technology in secondary education and worked on projects related to integrating images and graphics into the teaching of poetry.

He was “diligent and proactive,” Olive Mugenda, a former vice chancellor at the university who worked with Mwangi for more than a decade, wrote on Twitter.

Gathumbi published dozens of papers, including one on how administrators react differently to graffiti scrawled by girls instead of boys. She had received certifications in French, African storybook writing, computer studies and other areas from across the world, including institutions in Britain and Slovakia.

Hussein Swaleh, the 52-year-old former head of the governing body for Kenyan soccer, was also among those who died on the flight, according to Barry Otieno, the federation’s head of communications.

“It’s a sad day for football in Kenya, very sad day,” said Otieno. “We were looking to roll out a youth development football tournament for the future of youth and football in the country, we had a lot planned.”

Thirty-two Kenyans died on the flight, more than from any other country.

James Macharia, the transport secretary, said the government was working to get the family members to Ethiopia so they could identify the bodies.

Aid workers were also killed in the crash. Four were employees of Catholic Relief Services, all of them Ethiopian citizens travelling to Nairobi for training.

Sintayehu Aymeku was a procurement manager who left behind a wife and three daughters. Sara Chalachew was a senior project officer for grants. Mulusew Alemu was a senior officer in the finance department. Getnet Alemayehu was a senior project officer for procurement and compliance. He had a wife and one daughter.

“Although we are in mourning, we celebrate the lives of these colleagues and the selfless contributions they made to our mission, despite the risks and sacrifices that humanitarian work can often entail,” the organisation said in a statement.

In Nigeria, the government confirmed the death of Abiodun Bashua, a former ambassador who had been working with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa.

He joined the Nigerian foreign service in 1976 and worked in several countries, including Austria, Ivory Coast and Iran, according to the Nigerian Foreign Ministry. He also worked with the United Nations on peacekeeping operations and climate change issues.

Two Spaniards were on the flight. Jordi Dalmau Sayol, 46, was a Catalan chemical engineer who was on a business trip. He was working for a water infrastructure company that was awarded a water desalination project in Kenya, according to the Spanish daily La Vanguardia. Dalmau’s death was confirmed by his company.

Pilar Martínez Docampo, 32, worked for an aid organization and was travelling to Kenya to give language classes to children, according to La Opinión, a newspaper in her home region of Galicia, in northwestern Spain. Authorities in her hometown, Cangas do Morrazo, confirmed her death.

A day after the crash, a sombre mood engulfed the UN headquarters in Nairobi, as politicians, environmentalists and government officials gathered for a major UN meeting on the environment — the United Nations Environment Assembly — a destination for many people on the flight. The meeting focused on sustainable development and environmental challenges related to poverty, natural resources and waste management.

Among the passengers were at least 22 people who worked for UN-affiliated agencies.

The crash — of a flight that had been nicknamed the “UN shuttle” because of how often UN staff members take it — has highlighted the organisation’s work in some of the world’s most troubled regions, from South Sudan to North Korea.

The UN secretary-general, António Guterres, offered “heartfelt condolences” to the loved ones of the UN staff members who died in the crash. He also said in an email to staff that flags at UN offices would fly at half-staff Monday to honour the victims.

Among the passengers traveling to the meeting was Victor Tsang, a gender expert from Hong Kong who worked for the United Nations Environment Programme in Nairobi. According to his biography on the agency’s website, Tsang had worked in Chad, Ethiopia, Panama and South Sudan.

A Twitter account that appears to be Tsang’s says that while he worked in sustainable development, his passion was camping with his 2-year-old son in his family’s garden.

“Victor was so dedicated, and a dear colleague,” one of his former colleagues in Nairobi, Oona Tully, wrote on Twitter.

The World Food Programme said seven of its staff members had died in the crash, the most of any UN organisation. The program’s work focuses on widespread hunger caused by war or instability in Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen, among other countries.

“As we mourn, let us reflect that each of these WFP colleagues were willing to travel and work far from their homes and loved ones to help make the world a better place to live,” David Beasley, the head of the programme, said in a statement. “That was their calling.”

The World Food Programme victims included Ekta Adhikari of Nepal, who had worked for the programme in Ethiopia; Michael Ryan of Ireland, who had helped Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh prepare for seasonal monsoons; and Zhen-Zhen Huang of China, who had worked in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital.

“I cannot imagine the loss felt by your loved ones, especially your son,” one of Huang’s colleagues, Faizza Tanggol, wrote on Twitter.

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said three staff members had died: Nadia Adam Abaker Ali, 40, a Sudanese citizen; Jessica Hyba, 43, from Canada; and Jackson Musoni, 31, from Rwanda.

Ali, who leaves a husband and 6-year-old daughter, was a health specialist who joined the agency in Sudan eight years ago, helping people who fled conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region.

Musoni also worked in Sudan helping to coordinate operations in East Darfur. He had worked for Rwanda’s Foreign Ministry before joining the UN agency in 2014; he had three children, aged 8, 5 and 4, the refugee agency said.

Hyba, a mother of two daughters aged 9 and 12, had joined the refugee agency in 2013 and had started a new post as its senior external relations officer in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, only last month.

Other victims of the crash had been traveling to UN events. One was Sebastiano Tusa, an underwater archaeologist from Italy who had been traveling to Kenya for a UNESCO conference about safeguarding underwater cultural heritage in Eastern Africa.

Joanna Toole, a UN fisheries consultant from southwestern England, had planned to attend the conference to represent the aquaculture department of the Food and Agriculture Organisation.

Two days before the flight she tweeted that she was happy to be among an increasing number of women working for the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation.

Toole, 36, was from Exmouth, in the southwestern English region of Devon. The Exmouth Journal reported that she had attended a local community college before studying animal behaviour at a university.

“Everybody was very proud of her and the work she did. We’re still in a state of shock,” her father, Adrian Toole, told the local news site Devon Live. “Joanna was genuinely one of those people who you never heard a bad word about.”

Toole, who had kept homing pigeons and pet rats as a child, often posted on social media about initiatives to protect animals from marine pollution and make the fishing industry more environmentally friendly.

Toole’s next retweet was of a post by the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.

“We won’t bring about peace in the world merely by praying for it; we have to take steps to tackle the violence and corruption that disrupt peace,” the Dalai Lama wrote. “We can’t expect change if we don’t take action.”

c.2019 New York Times News Service