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France's civil aviation authority announced Tuesday that all 153 passengers killed in a Colombian jetliner crash in western Venezuela earlier in the day were French citizens and none survived.
"According to our information, the 153 passengers were from Martinique," said a spokesman of French authorities in Martinique and the General Directorate for Civil Aviation (DGAC) in Paris.
Colombian officials said earlier that the West Caribbean Airways plane, flying from Panama to Martinique, had been carrying 152 passengers and an eight-person Colombian crew.
According to the Martinique tour company which had chartered the MD-82 aircraft, Globe Trotters, the victims were returning to their homes on the Caribbean island of Martinique after a week-long vacation in Panama.
France's air accident investigation office was sending three people to Venezuela and two to Martinique to investigate the causes of the crash.
In a statement, French President Jacques Chirac expressed his condolences and profound compassion to the families of the victims and to those close to them in the name of all French people.
Colonized by France in 1635 and officially annexed by the King of France in 1674, Martinique has subsequently remained a French possession except for three brief periods of foreign occupation. In 1946, the island became a Department of France and in 1974 a Region of France.
(Xinhua News Agency August 17, 2005)
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