[041092 vs 041022]

Photographer Raimond (1964) made this picture for Colors Magazine (about mass housing) in the Bijlmermeer, a neighbourhood in Amsterdam, which today houses almost 50,000 people of over 150 nationalities. It was designed as a single project as part of a then (mid-sixties) innovative Modernist approach to urban design, but has degenerated into a slum in recent decades.

On 4 oktober 1992 a cargo plane of EL-AL crashed in this neighbourhood, with 43 officially reported victims. Ever since a belief has persisted that the actual number of victims was considerably higher. Bijlmermeer has a high number of residents living there illegally. Especially members of the Ghanaian community stated that they lost a considerable number of undocumented occupants who were not counted among the dead. Wikipedia, however, suggests that "The Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry concluded in 1998 that the body count found corresponded to the number of missing persons and thus there was no reason to believe that the actual death toll was higher". I still remember the number of appr. 200 victims. Despite well-intentioned attempts to find out who was missing (in exchange for a residency permit) the outcome failed miserably. The truth will never know be known.

The original tag/text in Colors is actually about another (not less) disturbing chapter of EL-AL Flight 1862;

ROSA HOOI. 40
Bijlmer estate, Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Did you see the plane crash?
Yes. I was taking care of the children of some friends. He was 19 and she was only 17. Their child usually drank only low-fat milk, and I had only whole milk in the refrigerator. I stayed home with the child while they both went on their scooter to buy some low-fat milk. I heard the airplane come down and saw fire through the open door of the flat. They didn't come back. Later they found their bodies under the rubble of the block where the plane crashed. They hadn't been dead for long, the blood on their faces was still wet.