(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-05-02 22:09

KHARTOUM  -- The defense minister of southern Sudanese government, Dominic Dim Deng, as well as 19 military officers were killed as their plane crashed at the southern Sudanese town of Rumbek, an officer of the UN peacekeeping force told Xinhua.  

The officer of the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) said that the plane belonging to Southern Sudan Air Connection company crashed and burst into flame when approaching Rumbek in preparation for an emergency landing at a simply-built airport at the town.  

There was no survivor among the passengers and two crew members on board.

A few minutes before the accident, a pilot of the plane had told the control tower of the Rumbek airport that one of the engines had developed technical problems and asked for a permission to land in Rumbek, according to a report of the local Miraya FM radio.

Then, the tower lost communications with the plane, the report noted.

Deng was the second high-ranking officer of the former rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) died in a plane crash since the movement founder, John Garang, killed as his helicopter crashed in a stormy weather in southern Sudan on July 31, 2005, only 21 days after he was sworn in as the country's first vice president.

Garang signed a comprehensive peace agreement with the Khartoum government in January 9, 2005, to end a 21-year-long civil between the northern and southern parts of the African country, during which millions of people had been killed.

Since then, the Sudanese government has gradually pulled its troops out of southern Sudan, leaving the area, which is one of the poorest areas in Sudan but rich in oil, to be controlled by the southern Sudanese government.