Five people were killed on Tuesday after a cargo plane carrying fuel for the UN’s World Food Programme crashed near South Sudan’s capital Juba, airport officials said.
The aircraft, a Soviet-era Antonov An-26 transport plane crashed shortly after taking off from Juba’s international airport, killing everyone onboard.
Head of the South Sudan Civil Aviation Authority, David Subek stated that One of the victims is a South Sudanese, two are Sudanese and two are Ukrainians.
The cargo plane belonging to a local operator was reportedly carrying 28 barrels of fuel for the WFP to Maban, a district housing more than 100,000 refugees.
According to the Airport’s director general Kur Kuol, it hit a mango tree and caught fire.
South Sudan Red Cross said emergency workers had collected five bodies that were burned beyond recognition.
South Sudan achieved independence in 2011 and has been in the throes of a chronic economic and political crisis, lacks a reliable transport infrastructure, with plane crashes often blamed on overloading and poor weather.
Overloading of planes is common in South Sudan, and was believed to have contributed to the 2015 crash of an Antonov plane in Juba that left 36 people dead.