Bodies of 5 Israelis killed in Bolivian crash to arrive Sunday

A plane carrying the bodies of five Israelis killed in a road accident early Friday in Bolivia left La Paz Saturday morning and is expected to reach Israel by Sunday, via Buenos Aires and Frankfurt.

The deadly collision between two jeeps in the salt desert was compounded by their reserve gas tanks igniting along with cooking gas canisters both jeeps were carrying.

"It is not clear how this accident happened," the president of Bolivia's Jewish community, Ricardo Udler, said Sunday on returning from the scene of the accident in the south of the country. "How do two jeeps collide like that in this huge open desert?" he asked, referring to Bolivia's Salar de Uyuni salt desert.

A group of 11 Israelis set out from the town of Uyuni in two jeeps. In the front jeep were Daniela Atzmon, Adi Rosman, Ortal Dukas, and Sivan Bondichek - all from Haifa, and Liran Mizrahi from Tel Aviv, all aged 21, along with a local driver and cook.

Another jeep carrying six Japanese tourists and a local driver suddenly appeared in their path, and the crash apparently occured when one of the jeeps swerved from its lane.

The driver of the front jeep carrying the Israelis was the only survivor from both vehicles.

"They told us they could not do anything to save their friends because the blaze was so great and they had no fire extinguishers," said Dikla Klein, a Chabad envoy in La Paz who hosted the crash's witnesses over the weekend.

Israel has no embassy in Bolivia, so the ambassador to Peru, Walid Manzur, who represents Israel's interests also in Bolivia, went to the capital La Paz and then flew from there to the scene of the accident with the Jewish community's president Udler to deal with bringing the bodies to Israel.

Since Bolivia does not have the technical means necessary for forensic identification, approval was promptly granted for flying the bodies to Israel, where they will be taken to the Institute of Forensic Medicine at Abu Kabir in South Tel Aviv.