SIERRA LEONE: Twenty-four UN staff and others were killed when a helicopter crashed into a hillside in thick jungle in Sierra Leone yesterday.
The helicopter, leased by the UN peacekeeping mission in the west African country, was on a flight from the capital Freetown when it crashed five minutes away from its destination, the eastern town of Yengema.
All those on board were killed, including three Russian pilots from the company that owned the helicopter, a UN spokeswoman said at the world body's headquarters in New York.
Fourteen Pakistanis and three Sierra Leoneans were also among the dead.
The helicopter was a Russian Mi-8 MTV-1 from the UTair company, which has been used by the UN since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Russian state television reported that the bodies of the crew had been sighted at the scene of the crash.
The United Nations has some 11,000 peacekeepers in the UN Mission in Sierra Leone, known as UNAMSIL.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan, extending his condolences, paid "tribute to the men and women who have lost their lives in the names of peace in this and other important peacekeeping operations".
It was at least the third Russian-made helicopter used by the United Nations to crash in Sierra Leone in less than three years.
In November 2001, a Mi-8 helicopter plunged into the sea near Freetown killing all seven people aboard after mechanical problems.
In October 2001 a British army press officer was killed in eastern Sierra Leone when the UN's Mi-24 helicopter crashed shortly after take-off.-