A United Nations cargo helicopter crashed Tuesday in the north part of South Sudan, killing three crew members and injuring another, a UN spokesman told reporters here.
“The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) has confirmed that three crew members of a helicopter contracted by the United Nations died today when it crashed near Bentiu in Unity State,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said at a daily briefing.
One surviving crew member has received treatment from Medecins Sans Frontieres, an international medical organization also called Doctors Without Borders, in Bentiu, said Dujarric, adding that the cargo helicopter was on a routine flight with UNMISS when contact was lost.
“The Mission has currently launched an investigation to determine the cause of the crash,” the spokesperson said. “The crew members were Russian citizens and the helicopter was contracted from a Russian company.”
According to a statement from UNMISS, the UN-contracted MI-8 helicopter, which was on a routine cargo flight from Wau in Western Bahr El Ghazal state to Bentiu, lost contact with the UN Mission at 14:28 local time and crashed about 10 km south of Bentiu in Unity State.
“Toby Lanzer, the officer-in-charge of UNMISS, expressed his condolences to the families of the deceased, and wished a full and speedy recovery to the injured crew member,” said Dujarric at the daily briefing.
Last year, another UN helicopter crash-landed on its way from South Sudan to Ethiopia, injuring four crew members. In 2012, South Sudan gunmen shot down a UN helicopter, killing all four Russian crew on board.
The Tuesday incident took place only one day after the South Sudanese government and the rebels reached a fresh truce in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Political in-fighting between President Salva Kiir and his former deputy Riek Macharand has turned into a full-fledged conflict that has forced more than 102,000 civilians to flee to UNMISS bases across the country, the highest number of people that have taken refuge in the mission’s protection sites for civilians since the conflict began in December 2013.
On Aug. 15, a latest round of clashes broke out in Bentiu as the two rivals and their representatives fell short of the goal of reaching a power-sharing deal by Aug. 10, through talks in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, being facilitated by the Intergovernmental Authority on Development.
