Tragedy Strikes: Plane Crash Claims 20 Lives in South Sudan
JUBA, South Sudan – A harrowing incident unfolded in South Sudan as a small aircraft tragically descended from the skies, leaving a somber shadow over the nation. On a day that began like any other, at least 20 lives were abruptly extinguished when the aircraft met its fateful end in the northern expanses of Unity State, perilously close to Sudan’s border.
The vessel, its hum of engines barely reaching a crescendo, found its final resting place near the expansive oil fields of Unity State around 10:30 am local time (08:30 GMT). The aircraft had embarked on what should have been a standard journey, bound for the capital city, Juba. Yet, it was fate’s unyielding whim that decreed otherwise.
“The plane crashed 500 meters from the airport… 21 people were on board. As for now, there’s only one survivor,” declared a distressed Gatwech Bipal Both, Unity State’s Minister of Information, as he relayed the grim news to AFP.
A sole beacon of hope amidst the despair emerged in the form of a South Sudanese engineer, pulled from the brink and whisked away to Bentiu State Hospital. Witnesses recount the rapid response, yet the air hung heavy with the knowledge of those who would never return.
History, it seems, is as patient as it is perpetual. This ill-fated aircraft belonged to the Greater Pioneer Operating Company (GPOC) and was under the steady, albeit tragic, stewardship of Light Air Services. It had conducted numerous routine missions, yet this one would become its legacy of heartbreak.
The tragedy’s canvas extended to tribes and nations beyond South Sudan. Reports from the United Nations’ Radio Miraya revealed that both the pilot and co-pilot—artists of the sky, now silenced—were among those lost. That day, the airplane carried dreams and drudgery; oil field workers, the essential cogs in the machinery of industry, were gathered under wings meant to ferry them to toil and back.
With sadness etched in every word, Bipal recounted, “Among those dead were two Chinese nationals and one Indian. An international mosaic bonded in tragedy, their lives weaving a tapestry of shared human vulnerability.” The consortium, GPOC, harbored elements of China National Petroleum Corporation and Nile Petroleum Corporation, forming a nexus of economic endeavors now overshadowed by mourning.
Initial whispers, merchants of calamity, spoke of 18 perished souls. Yet, Bipal’s sorrowful admission to Reuters told of how a precious fugue of two surviving members was snuffed before hope could root.
Why does the sky seem so unforgiving over South Sudan? This isn’t the country’s first brush with aeronautical tragedy. Echoes of the September 2018 calamity linger, when another vessel, defying gravity’s embrace, crashed on its journey from Juba to Yirol, untangling lives in an instant.
And in 2015, catastrophe needled through South Sudan’s tapestry once more. As a Russian-built cargo plane ascended ever so briefly from Juba’s heart, it plummeted, entwining dozens of stories into the haunting annals of history.
These tales of aviation woe unfurl like dark omens over the realm of the war-torn nation, leaving a populace to grapple anew with collective pain. The airfields, ostensibly gateways to realms beyond, reveal themselves as corridors to unexpected sorrow.
Will South Sudan rise above this perpetual pall? Can the paths once carved by tragedy eventually pave a runway for resilience?
Report By Ali Musa
Axadle Times International – Monitoring
