A UN Pilot Disappears In South Darfur State

28 July 2010 - (Darfur) – A captain of a Russian helicopter working for the UN is missing in south Darfur since Monday.

In an interview with SRS on Wednesday, UNAMID’s officer for media relations, Chris Cycmanick confirmed that the pilot was missing.

[Chris Cycmanick]: “The pilot is missing, the helicopter and the rest of the crew and the passengers are safely back in Nyala. It happened on Monday, the helicopter was in the process of picking up delegates from the LJM who were to be going to Doha. It was picking up members of the LJM, and was transporting them back to Nyala; from there they were to go to Doha. But we lost communication with the crew on Monday afternoon and we didn’t receive any information until Tuesday morning.”

According to Cycmanick, the plane failed to land in its designated area due to poor weather conditions. He further assured that UNAMID is working with the government to find the missing pilot.

[Chris Cycmanick]: “The place it was designated to land in had problems due to weather conditions; apparently there was a lot of mud and the pilot decided not to land near but to land about one kilometer away. I guess the government did not realize that the helicopter was going to land one kilometer away. The helicopter landed and it was met by a group which we thought is probably the local authorities. We do not know the group that met them. The government of Sudan and UNAMID are working to try to find him and see what happened. The rest of the crew and passengers are all safe and back in Nyala. We are concerned to see if he was taken by the people who met the helicopter when it landed, or he ran away. We are not sure of what really happened. We don’t know whether it’s the rebels that took him or the janjaweed. We don’t think its JEM or the SLA.”

That was UNAMID’s officer for media relations, Chris Cycmanick, speaking to Sudan Radio Service from Darfur on Wednesday.