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August 20, 2012

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Sudan minister among 32 helicopter crash victims

A SUDANESE helicopter carrying a government delegation crashed in a mountainous southern region yesterday, killing all 32 people on board including a Cabinet minister, a former presidential adviser, two generals and a TV crew.

The delegation was travelling aboard a chartered helicopter to the volatile South Kordofan state to attend prayers marking the end of Ramadan.

The helicopter went down "due to harsh weather conditions" near Talodi, a small town about 650 kilometers southwest of the capital, Khartoum, state-run news agency SUNA said.

A Sudanese official said the aircraft slammed into a mountain just before it was to land in Talodi amid heavy rain.

He said a search team that reached the site of the crash was having trouble identifying the victims as many bodies had been charred and torn to pieces.

The office of Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir released a list of all 26 passengers and six crew members who perished in the crash. Minister of Endowment (religious affairs) Ghadi al-Sadeq and a former adviser to al-Bashir were on the list. Four crew from Sudan's state television also died.

In late 2010, a plane carrying 36 people crashed on landing in Sudan's Darfur region, killing at least two people.

And in May 2008, before South Sudan became a separate country, a plane crash in the south killed 24 people, including key members of the regional southern Sudanese government.

Five years earlier, a Sudan Airways Boeing 737 from Port Sudan to Khartoum crashed soon after takeoff, killing all 115 people on board.



 

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