The body of Aya Na’amana, a 21-year-old Israeli student who went missing during a trip in Ethiopia’s Danakil Depression, was found on Aug. 18, 2019, Israel’s Ynet news site reported.
Salt formations and cliffs in the Danakil Depression in Ethiopia’s Afar region, photographed in 2017. (Yaref / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0) [file photo]
Na’amana, a student in the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Technion in Haifa, fell from a high cliff into a crater and was killed instantly, Ynet said. Some Israeli outlets spelled her name Na’amneh.
She had finished a four-week Technion course in Ethiopia with students from the Technion, York University in Canada and an Ethiopian university, the Technion said. The course ended the previous Wednesday, and six students, including Na’amana, stayed on to travel in Ethiopia.
She became separated from her group during the trip to the salt desert and did not reach the meeting point, Ynet reported. Her friends then posted appeals on Facebook. “She has been out for more than nine hours in a 50 degrees Celsius heat with no water,” one post in a group for backpackers in Africa said.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said the Israeli Embassy in Addis Ababa worked with senior Ethiopian army and government officials and an Israeli rescue company. Local police, soldiers and volunteers searched the area, using drones and a helicopter, until her body was found, the ministry said.
Her father, Salim, was on a plane to Ethiopia when the body was found and was told after landing. “I would have liked to go home to my family with my daughter, but to our great sorrow, we received the worst news possible,” he told Ynet.
The Foreign Ministry said it was helping the family bring her body to Israel for burial. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin asked his Ethiopian counterpart to return the body and sent condolences to the family, Jewish News reported.
Sources: Ynetnews: “Israeli student falls to her death in the Ethiopian Salt Desert” (Aug. 18, 2019), Jewish News (Aug. 2019)