Bodies of 19 Lebanese killed in June Algerian jet crash arrived Sunday at Beirut’s International Airport welcomed by masses of the victim’s relatives and top officials.

Bodies of 19 Lebanese killed in June Algerian jet crash arrived Sunday at Beirut's International Airport welcomed by masses of the victim's relatives and top officials.

An Internal Security Forces band performed an anthem for the dead as 25 ambulances and 70 medics awaited at the airport to transfer the caskets to the hometowns of the victims.

“Putting an end to the death of Lebanese expats in plane crashes is our responsibility and we must address the issue,” Foreign Minister Gibran Bassil said at the airport, after he arrived on the same plane that carried the bodies.

Representatives of Speaker Nabih Berri, Prime Minister Tammam Salam and Lebanon's religious leaders as well as several lawmakers were present at the airport.

PM Salam had earlier declared Sunday a day of national mourning.

Hajj Fayez Daher, whose wife and three children died in the crash, told Al-Jadeed that the event was nothing more than “sadness renewed.”

Flight AH5017, a McDonnell Douglas 83 jet that had taken off on July 24 from Burkina Faso bound for Algiers, crashed in the Mali desert. All 116 passengers and crew killed, including 19 Lebanese nationals, among them 10 children.

The National News Agency identified the victims as follows:

- Randa Basma, the wife of Fayez Daher, and her children Ali, Salah and Shayma'a
- Bilal Dhayni, his German wife and their children Malek, Rayan and Olivia
- Mohammad Akhdar, Fadi Rustom, Omar Ballan and Jospeh al-Haj
- Munji Hasan, his wife Najwa Zayyat and their children Mohammad Rida, Hussein, Hassan and Ruqayya