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Maldives bomb couple head home

Manchester Evening News 2/10/2007

THE family of a bride badly injured in a terror bombing in the Maldives have told of the moment they heard she had been caught up in the attack.

Jennifer Donelan's father, Thomas Green, and sister Rachael Green, said they were `keeping their fingers crossed' that she would be returning to Manchester for specialist treatment tomorrow.

Jennifer, 32, originally from Wrightington in Wigan, and new husband Christian Donelan suffered severe burns after the nail bomb blast in Male, the capital of the Maldives.

Mr Green told how he and his wife Marian were told of the bombing in a phone call on the day Christian and Jennifer, who met during the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, were due to return from their honeymoon after marrying in Italy.

The couple are expected to be airlifted home for treatment at the specialist burns unit at Manchester's Wythenshawe Hospital tomorrow.

Rachael, 25, said: "It's been awful and it was a huge shock., but it seems like she's going to be OK.

"You just don't expect this to happen to one of your family. We've been speaking to her on the phone and she knows a plan is in place to get her home.

"She said that she was OK and she was in a private room being well looked after with Christian."

It is understood that the couple, who live in Qatar in the Gulf, need urgent plastic surgery and skin grafts. They have been stranded over the weekend as their families tried to persuade their insurance company, the Maldive government and the Foreign Office to pay the £125,000 transport costs.

The couple were among 12 tourists hurt by the bomb, said to have contained nails and glass. The device detonated outside the crowded Sultan Park in Male as they were visiting on a day trip.

Jennifer has first and second degree burns covering up to 40 per cent of her body, including her face, hands and legs. Christian, 32, originally from Rotherham, has 27 per cent burns.

Rachael said the couple met at the Manchester Games, where they both worked as event organisers. They lived and worked in Athens in 2004, then in Turin during the 2006 Winter Olympics before moving to Qatar to work on the Asian Games of 2006.

Police in Male have made seven arrests and an investigation is under way to establish a motive.

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