UNITED NATIONS, Mar 31 (APP): The United Nations mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), known as MONUSCO, has secured the crash site of the ill-fated UN helicopter in which six Pakistani peacekeepers were martyred, and begun a preliminary investigation into the incident, a UN spokesman said Thursday.
One Russian and one Serbian peacekeepers also died in the crash on Tuesday.
Spokesman Stephane Dujarric told his regular noon press briefing in New York that a ceremony to honour the fallen peacekeepers from Pakistan, Russia and Serbia
is planned for Saturday in Goma, the capital of DRC’s North Kivu province.
Replying to a question from APP, the spokesman said that the work on the repatriation of the bodies of the fallen peacekeepers to their respective countries was underway.
Asked about persisting reports that the Puma helicopter, with eight peacekeepers aboard, was shot down by M23 rebels fighting the Congolese army, Dujarric said the investigation had just opened.
“We take these investigations very seriously– forensics needs to be done; the aircraft has to be examined, and other things have to be looked at,” he said.
“So we don’t want to jump to any conclusions.”
On Tuesday, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issues a statement expressing his sorrow over the tragic incident and offered his “sincere” condolences to the bereaved families and to the governments of the three of countries.
