U.N.: Search Crews Find Body at Crash Site

U.N.: Search Crews Find Body at Crash Site

By MOHAMED OSMAN and TANALEE SMITH Associated Press Writers
July 31, 2005
The Associated Press

KHARTOUM, Sudan A U.N. official said search crews on Monday found the site of
a helicopter crash and a body they believe is that of Sudan's vice president,
a former rebel leader who is a key figure in a fledgling peace deal between
the predominantly Arab Muslim government and the Christian south.

Ugandan and Sudanese forces had been searching for John Garang's helicopter
since Sunday and Uganda's president said it had crashed in bad weather in the
border region between the two countries.

Search crews had reached the crash site Monday and found a body they believed
was that of Garang, a U.N. official in Khartoum said, speaking on condition
of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information. He said
a U.N. helicopter had arrived in the area to help with the search, but did not
provide more details

:Governor of the Lake State :Garang was killed

LONDON (Reuters) - Sudan's former rebel leader, First Vice-President John Garang, has died
,
apparently in a helicopter accident while flying back from Uganda to Sudan, a U.N. official said on Monday.

Rudi Muller, head of the Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in southern Sudan, told Reuters by telephone from southern Sudan he had been told of Garang's death by the governor of the Lake State in southern Sudan.

"It was the governor of the Lake State who told us in a meeting at 3.30 a.m. that Doctor Garang has been killed in an accident and they would like to brief us in a meeting at 7.30 a.m.," he said.

He said the governor, Pagan Amum, had no further details. Amum is also a senior official in Garang's Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM).

Uganda said earlier on Monday that it had been searching since Sunday morning in the Kidepo area, which lies on the border with Sudan, for Garang, whose helicopter went missing late on Saturday as he returned from talks with President Yoweri Museveni.

"We share the anxiety of the public since it is now 24 hours since the estimated arrival of the helicopter at its destination," said a statement issued by Museveni early on Monday from his ranch at Rwakitura, about 300 km (190 miles) southwest of the capital Kampala.

"Since (Sunday) morning, we have been searching the Kidepo area to locate the chopper without success," it said.

Garang waged a two-decade war against Khartoum from southern Sudan until a peace deal in January, under which he became vice-president on July 9