New York, Oct 9 2009 7:10PM
All 11 people aboard a United Nations plane that crashed today in a mountainous area of south-eastern Haiti have been killed, the UN peacekeeping mission to the Caribbean country has confirmed.
The mission, known as <"http://www.un.org/depts/dpko/missions/minustah/">MINUSTAH, issued a communiqué that said the plane was on a reconnaissance flight in south-eastern Haiti when it crashed around noon into the side of a mountain near the town of Ganthier.
The bodies of the 11 passengers and crew have been recovered from the crash site and transported back to Port-au-Prince, the national capital and the headquarters of MINUSTAH.
The names of the people killed have not yet been released but a UN spokesperson confirmed that the victims include Uruguayan and Jordanian military officers serving with the mission.
MINUSTAH reported that an investigation is already under way into the cause of the crash of the Casa C-212 aircraft, which had departed from Port-au-Prince on a routine surveillance flight near the border with the Dominican Republic.
In its communiqué the mission offered its condolences to the families, colleagues and friends of the peacekeepers who died.
MINUSTAH has been in place in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, since mid-2004 after the then president Jean-Bertrand Aristide went into exile amid violent unrest. Currently there are more than 9,000 military and police personnel deployed and nearly 2,000 civilian staff.
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Oct 9 2009 7:10PM
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