UN confirms copter downed in S Sudan

The United Nations says the crash of one of its helicopters in South Sudan was caused by an “attack”.

In a statement issued on Wednesday, the UN Security Council confirmed that the Mi-8AMT cargo helicopter was shot down near the northern oil town of Bentiu a day before.

Three Russian crew members were killed and a fourth was injured in the incident.

The statement denounced the downing as a “a grave violation” that “jeopardized UNMISS (the United Nations Mission in South Sudan) operations.”

South Sudan’s military accused rebel forces of the raid, but the rebels were quick to deny the allegation.

“The area in which the plane (helicopter) was reportedly shot down is government-held territory, if indeed the aircraft was shot down,” a rebel spokesman, Mabior Garang, said.

Bentiu is one of the towns worst hit by clashes triggered in December, when President Salva Kiir and his sacked deputy Riek Machar fell out.

The conflict soon turned into an all-out war between the army and defectors, with the violence taking on an ethnic dimension that pitted the president’s Dinka tribe against Machar’s Nuer ethnic group.

The clashes left thousands of South Sudanese dead and forced around 1.5 million people to flee their homes in the world’s youngest nation.

On Monday, Kiir and Machar signed a ceasefire deal and pledged to put an end to the civil war.

South Sudan gained independence in July 2011 after its people overwhelmingly voted in a referendum for a split from the North.

MSM/MAM/MHB