LONDON, England (AP) -- The Sudanese government has confirmed that Vice President John Garang was killed when a Ugandan presidential aircraft he was traveling in crashed into a southern Sudan mountain range.
"It has now been confirmed that the plane crashed after it hit a mountain range in southern Sudan because of poor visibility and this resulted in the death of Dr. John Garang DeMabior, six of his colleagues and seven other crew members of the Ugandan presidential plane," according to a statement released by the office of Sudanese President Omar el-Bashir on Monday.
Ugandan officials said Garang and the others were flying in one of President Yoweri Museveni's personal helicopters, but the Sudanese statement said it was a plane. The conflict could not be immediately reconciled.
The bodies of Garang, six colleagues and seven crew members were found early Monday in rugged mountains running along the Sudanese-Ugandan border.
The Sudanese military said the aircraft left the Ugandan capital of Kampala for southern Sudan on Saturday at about 6:30 p.m.. Contact was lost with about an hour later, Sudanese information minister Abdel-Basit Sabdarat said on Sunday.
Ugandan, Sudanese and Kenyan troops have been hunting for the helicopter since early Sunday, after it failed to reach its destination in southern Sudan on Saturday.
His helicopter had attempted to land in the New Kush region of southern Sudan but aborted the landing because of bad weather and headed back south, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said in a statement early Monday.
The helicopter was last heard near Pirre, a mountainous region near the Kenyan and Sudanese borders on the edge of a large national park, he said.
"The (Sudanese) president has appealed to the people to be calm, expressing that although the loss is great but the peace process will continue because peace has now become the property of the Sudanese people and peace-loving people around the world," said the Sudanese statement.
Source For Full Article : http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/africa/08/01/sudan.garang.ap/index.html
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