Daily Times

A plane carrying aid supplies for use in the fight against the COVID-19 crashed in Somalia on Monday.

According to State-run Somalia News Agency, the plane belonged to African Express Airways crashed near Bardale town. As a result, six people were killed.

It left the capital Mogadishu and briefly stopped in the city of Baidoa before continuing to the town of Bardale, in the southern Bay region, where it crashed a short distance from the airport.

The cause of the Monday evening incident is not known.

Samalia’s Secretary General Abdalle Ahmed Mumin wrote on twitter, “According to local security officials a rocket-propelled grenade brought down a light Kenyan-registered aircraft with 6 crew while landing in Bardaale town in Bay region #Somalia.”

He added, “2 Kenyan pilots & 4 #Somali nationals are dead. #Ethiopian forces hit the plane mistakenly.”

The country’s Transport Minister Mohamed Salad said six people — the pilot, copilot, flight engineer and a trainee pilot, as well as two people working for the airline — were onboard. Five bodies have been recovered so far, he added.

Salad said he was sending a unit to investigate, who will arrive on Tuesday, and welcomed international assistance.

Somalia’s al Qaeda-linked insurgency al Shabaab has a presence in the area where the plane came down, although the town of Bardale, in the southern Bay region, and its airfield is secured by Somali forces and Ethiopian troops.