A United Nations plane crashed while trying to land at the airport serving Congo's capital Kinshasa on Monday, killing least 20 people, a Congolese health ministry official said.
The United Nations confirmed the crash, adding that both Congolese and foreign nationals were on the flight. The operator of the plane, Georgian flag carrier Airzena Georgian Airways, said the crew was Georgian.
"Definitely there are casualties, but we can't give figures, investigations are ongoing, people are still working at the crash site," U.N. mission spokesman George Ola Davies told Reuters.
The U.N.' 19,000-strong peacekeeping mission is backing Congo government efforts to fight rebel groups that have been haunting the country's troubled east since a 1998-2003 civil war that killed five million people.
Health Ministry official Joseph Kiboko said least 20 of the 32 passengers and crew on the U.N. flight were killed after the plane lost control in high winds during landing.
"We sent eight people to hospital who were still breathing, but I don't know whether they survived. Both the pilots were killed," he said.
A U.N. source, who asked not to be named, said: "The plane landed heavily, broke into two and caught fire."
Twenty U.N. workers were listed as on board the flight, but their identities and nationalities have not yet been released.
A Reuters correspondent at the airport said the Bombardier CRJ-300 jet was completely destroyed and the wreckage was lying at the end of the runway.
The plane had taken off from the eastern city of Kisangani, the U.N. said.(Reuters)
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