Moroni - Comoros President Ahmed Abdallah Sambi said on Thursday that rescuers had yet to recover any bodies from the site of the Yemenia plane crash, and appealed for more international help.
"The operations seem complicated. The scene of the crash has not been exactly located. No body has been retrieved," Sambi told reporters in the archipelago's capital Moroni.
A 12-year-old girl is the only survivor of Tuesday's crash of the A310 airliner with 153 passengers and crew aboard. Bahia Bakari was flown home to France aboard a French government jet on Thursday.
Sambi had cut short his attendance at an African Union summit in Libya and returned home earlier on Thursday.
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"We are appealing for help from the international community," he told reporters after visiting the command centre for the search operation.
"We are asking for additional help to help find the victims and the black boxes and to establish the cause of the crash."
The airliner crashed into the sea and the wreck of the plane is believed to be at a depth of more than 300 metres.
"The difficulty in retrieving bodies is because the plane is located some 300 to 400 metres (deep) and at a spot difficult to access," Comoros Red Cross spokeswoman Ramulati Ben Ali said.
The French and US navies have provided ships and divers to help in the search. Neighbouring Madagascar has also provided search equipment.
On Wednesday, search teams detected signals from the jet's distress beacons, but had yet to locate the black box flight recorders.
Vice-President Idi Nodhoim on Wednesday criticised France for not alerting the Comoros government that the jet had been banned from French airspace because of safety concerns.
But Nadhoim's criticism drew a sharp retort from French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.
"The plane was banned from flying to our country, everybody knew it," said Kouchner said.
"Everybody knew it in the Comoros, everybody." - Sapa-AFP
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