A small plane carrying oil workers has crashed in South Sudan’s Unity state, killing 20 people, an official said.
The plane crashed 500 metres from the airport near the Unity oilfield on Wednesday morning en route to the capital Juba, the information minister said.
Among the dead were workers of Greater Pioneer Operating Company, a joint venture of China’s state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation and Nile Petroleum Corporation.
Reuters wrote that two Chinese and one Indian citizen were among the dead. However, the information minister did not give any further details about how the plane crashed.
Earlier, media reports put the death toll at 18, but the information minister told Reuters that two survivors had died later. Only one of the passengers survived.
In 2015, dozens of people were killed when a Russian-made cargo plane carrying passengers crashed after taking off from the capital, Juba.
There have been several plane crashes in war-torn South Sudan in recent years. In September 2018, at least 19 people were killed when a small plane carrying passengers from the capital Juba to the city of Erol crashed.