I’ll miss you forever …tributes to Britons killed in crash horror
UN worker Joanna Toole had celebrated her 36th birthday just hours before she boarded the doomed Ethiopian Airlines flight that crashed killing at least nine Britons, a friend has revealed.
Miss Toole’s devastated partner Paul Kiernan, who works for the Irish Embassy in Rome, paid tribute to her last night, posting a picture of the couple together, saying: ‘To my beautiful Jo. The most passionate and courageous person I have ever known. I will miss you and love you forever.’
The environmentalist, from Exmouth, Devon, had recently relocated to Rome with her partner and worked for the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
She was travelling to the UN’s Environment Assembly to represent the FAO and spent Saturday celebrating her birthday with friend and colleague Rumiana Uzunova before boarding her connecting flight.
Her friend, a UN liaison officer, posted a picture of the pair yesterday, saying: ‘My dear friend Joanna, I never imagined that a day after celebrating your birthday I would wake up to this news.
‘We saw each other yesterday before you boarded to Nairobi ET302. You imagined a different world but instead you left us so young…. I will truly miss you.’
Miss Toole was one of at least nine Britons – some of them dual nationals – who died.
Among them was British-French Sarah Auffret, a former student at Plymouth University and Polar tourism expert.
The environmentalist, who was raised in Brittany, was also on her way to the UN Environment Assembly in Nairobi which opened with a minute’s silence yesterday in memory of the 22 workers killed.
Another dual national Joseph Waithaka, 55, who lived in Hull for a decade before moving back to his native Kenya, also died.
His son Ben Kuria, from London, said his father had worked for the Probation Service, adding: ‘He helped so many people in Hull who had found themselves on the wrong side of the law.’
Irishman and father-of-two Michael Ryan was among the seven dead from the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP).
The aid worker’s mother Christine said he was due to celebrate his 40th birthday this month and had ‘wanted to save the world’ through his work.
His colleague Ekta Adikharim, who was from Nepal and studied at Anglia Ruskin University for several years, also died.
The family of Sarah Hassan Said and her son Nasrudin Abdulkadir confirmed on social media they had died. It is understood they were dual Somali-British nationals.
British aid worker Sam Pegram, 25, who was travelling to work for the Norwegian Refugee Council in Kenya also died.
Mr Pegram had been living in Switzerland but his family lived in Penwortham, Lancashire.
His distraught mother Deborah said last night: ‘Sam was so looking forward to going to Nairobi. He loved the work he was doing.
‘We can’t believe this has happened - we are totally devastated.’
Mr Pegram, who had studied at Leeds and York universities, had also worked in Jordan helping refugees.
‘Most courageous person I know’