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Camille Lou Libron was not supposed to be on the Yemenia Airways Flight 626 that crashed en route to the Comoros Islands from Paris last Monday.
She was merely asked to pinch-hit for a Malaysian flight attendant who was on leave.
Her relatives in Cebu City were shocked when they heard the news that Libron, 26, was the Filipino crew member who was among the 153 people on board the ill-fated aircraft.
Their only request to the government is to bring her home. “For our friends and family, we only ask them to pray for Camille,” said Gregory Libron, Camille's cousin and a former barangay secretary at Basak San Nicolas in Cebu City.
Based on the latest information he got, Gregory said, the body of Camille had been recovered. But complete details won't be known until today.
Camille Lou, 26, is the youngest and the only girl of three siblings. Her father and one of her two older brothers are both Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW). Her name was coined from the first names of her father, Camillo and mother, Lucy.
She grew up and lived in barangay Poblacion, Calatrava town, Negros Occidental but she earned a fine arts degree from the University of Cebu, in Cebu City.
“Taga-Calatrava mi pero duna sab miy mga kaliwat dinhi sa Cebu (We are from Calatrava but we also have relatives here in Cebu),” said Gregory, 50.
Camelo is a seaman, who is currently working on an international vessel while her mother, Lucy, attends to a family business, according to Gregory.
He said Camelo already knew of the death of Camille but was not sure if Lucy was informed. But Lucy had been in Manila since Sunday to meet her son who was scheduled to arrive on Tuesday from California in the United States.
“One of our cousins went to Manila today (Wednesday) to check on Lucy but as of now, we still did not have any news yet,” he added.
The family worries about Lucy because she has a heart ailment and is suffering from hypertension.
Gregory said Camille was employed at the Yemeni airline for about a year already.
Gregory said that even as a child, Camille had always wanted to work as stewardess. She applied to all local and international airline companies that she came across until she landed a job at Yemenia Airways.
Her relatives thought that her employment there was a blessing.
“She was not accepted at PAL and it was thought to be a blessing for the family because she was later accepted at an international airline. It was a better job because it was international,” said Greg in Cebuano, who had a brother who worked at PAL.
According to Philippine Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Antonio Villamor, Camille Lou was not supposed to be on that flight but had to pinch hit for a Malaysian stewardess who went on leave.
The flight had originated in France, with a stop in Yemen before proceeding to the Comoros, a group of islands in the Indian Ocean between Madagascar and the African mainland.
“We can't ascertain which leg she joined. The plane was flying the last leg of a journey taking passengers from Paris and Marseilles to Moroni, the capital of the Comoros via Yemen, when flight controllers lost contact with the plane,” he said.
Villamor said Yemenia Airways and the government of Yemen have yet to release any details about the plane's 153 passengers, including 11 crewmembers and three infants.
He said he got his information from his contacts in Yemen and France, as well as from media reports in Saudi Arabia. The Riyadh embassy has jurisdiction over Filipinos in Yemen.
Search teams rescued a 14-year-old girl from the ocean, while three bodies were reported to have been recovered from waters off the Comoros coast.
The Yemenia (Yemen Airways) plane was the second Airbus to crash into the sea recently. An Air France Airbus A330-200 crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on May 31, killing all 228 people on board, as it flew from Rio de Janeiro to Paris.
Camille's cousin, Gregory said they knew that a Filipina was one of the fatalities in the Yemeni plane crash.
But they only realized that the fatality was their cousin on Wednesday morning when a text message circulated among members of the clan, who live in various places in Cebu and Negros Occidental, that the Filipina was Camille.
Gregory said the entire clan, including the owner of Cebu Northwinds Hotel in Cebu City, Danny Libron, a cousin, was in a state of shock and grief.
Gregory described his cousin as “sweet, tall, and a beautiful lady” who was loved by her family being the only girl among three siblings.
The last time she saw Camille was more than a year ago when she was a bride’s maid to the wedding of a relative.
“Malambing kaayo na siya unya kina pinangga kaayo sa iyang papa ug mama, buotan pud kaayo nang bataana (She is very sweet and loved by her parents. She is a good girl),” Greg added./with INQUIRER
