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7 UN Peacekeepers Killed in Helicopter Crash in S. Leone |
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The United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) Thursday announced that all seven people on board, including one Ukrainian pilot and two senior Zambian military officials, have died after a UN helicopter crashed in the sea off the country's capital Freetown late Wednesday.
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The United Nations Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL) Thursday announced that all seven people on board, including one Ukrainian pilot and two senior Zambian military officials, have died after a UN helicopter crashed in the sea off the country's capital Freetown late Wednesday.
Three bodies had been pulled from the Atlantic Ocean and the search was continuing for the other four, according to reports reaching here from Freetown on Thursday.
UNAMSIL spokeswoman Margaret Novicki was quoted as saying that the helicopter, a Ukrainian MI-8, "crashed in the sea shortly after taking off from the Mammy Yoko helipad" adjoining the UNALSIL headquarters at around 7:40 p.m. local time.
Movicki disclosed that all the seven people on board were from UNAMSIL and were flying to Lungi, Freetown's airport which lies across the bay.
"We located three bodies last night. The recovery effort is ongoing this morning," she said, adding that finding any survivors was unlikely.
As the largest UN peacekeeping force in the world, the UNAMSIL, which has reached a strength of some 17,000, is trying to strengthen its deployment aimed at lasting peace in the west African country.
So far, the UNAMSIL has suffered about 50 fatalities, many of them in clashes with the rebel Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone.
The brutal civil war between the RUF rebels and the successive governments in Sierra Leone since 1991 has witnessed tens of thousands of civilians mutilated, raped or displaced.
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