Hundreds gather to mourn air collision victims.

HUNDREDS of people crowded into a square in the Urals city of Ufa yesterday to mourn the 45 Russian schoolchildren who died in last week's mid-air disaster over Germany.

Orthodox and Muslim clergymen offered prayers over the flower-laden wooden coffins the first 33 bodies to have arrived back in Bashkortostan.

"It is a great and heavy loss for everybody," Talgat Tadzhuddin, the chief Russian Islamic leader, said at the ceremony.

Seventy-one people were killed when a Bashkirian Airlines Tu-154 bound for Barcelona, Spain, slammed into a DHL couriers Boeing cargo jet flown by a British father of three.

Ufa, the Bashkortostan capital, was hit especially hard by the accident. The 45 Ufa children included many of the area's leading students and athletes.

Bashkortostan Prime Minister Rafail Baidavletov read a message of sympathy at the ceremony and said a similar memorial would be held on Friday, when 28 more bodies are to be returned.

Parents have decided against a suggestion by one that the children be buried in a common grave. However, media reports said some of the victims would be interred near one another at a Ufa cemetery.

The investigation has focused on the actions of Swiss air traffic control, in particular whether it gave the Russian pilot sufficient warning to descend before the collision at 35,000ft.

Yunir Valeyev lost his son Vener in the accident, and said all the parents were following the investigation anxiously.