At least 36 dead including five Armenian crew after Antonov An-12 cargo plane crashes into farming community in Juba

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

At least 36 people have been killed after a plane crashed shortly after taking off from South Sudan’s capital, Juba.



Police and rescue workers pulled bodies out of the wreckage of the Russian-built Antonov An-12 cargo plane, which crashed into a farming community on an island on the White Nile river.

“So far 36 bodies have been collected and brought to hospitals,” said Majju Hillary, a South Sudan Red Cross official, adding that all those killed had been on board the plane.

Two people were pulled out alive but one later died, leaving a young boy the only survivor. Hillary said: “We can’t assess this is the final toll, as some debris is too heavy to be lifted and needs some heavy machinery.”

The Armenian embassy in Egypt said the five-member Armenian crew were all killed.

The main fuselage of the plane ploughed into thick woodland, scattering debris around the riverbank in a wide area.

Radio Miraya, a UN-backed station, said the plane had been heading to the northern Upper Nile state, and crashed 800 metres from the runway at Juba international airport.

Police at the site said they did not know how many people had been on board the plane, nor whether people on the ground may have been hit. Cargo planes flying to remote parts of South Sudan often carry passengers as well as goods. The island is home to several small farming communities.

Juba’s airport is the busiest in the war-torn country, hosting regular commercial flights as well as a military aircraft and cargo planes delivering aid to remote regions.

Civil war broke out in December 2013 when President Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar of planning a coup, setting off a cycle of retaliatory killings that has split the country along ethnic lines. Fighting continues despite an August peace deal, but battles today are far from the capital.

Tens of thousands have been killed, and UN-backed experts have warned of the “concrete risk of famine” before the end of the year if fighting continues and aid does not reach the hardest-hit areas.