KINSHASA - Four unidentified bodies have
been found in Congo amid the wreckage of a plane that had been
carrying staff of Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi, the
government said on Tuesday.
The cargo plane, believed to have been carrying around eight
passengers and crew, crashed last Thursday in Democratic
Republic of Congo's central province of Sankuru.
The Antonov An-72 transport aircraft, which was operated by
the air force on behalf of the presidency, was flying to the
capital Kinshasa in the west of the country when it came down
near the town of Kole.
It had disappeared from radar an hour after taking off from
Goma in the east.
"Experts confirm that the debris found near Kole, Sankuru
province, in the centre of the country, are indeed those of the
An-72," the president's office said in a statement.
Among those on board were Tshisekedi's driver, a logistics
manager, bodyguards and two Russian pilots, Congolese and
Russian authorities said.
Photographs circulating on social media showed parts of the
wreckage in thick jungle.
A team of investigators, backed by experts from the United
Nations peacekeeping mission, have reached the crash site, the
president's office said. The cause of the accident was not yet
clear.