A United Nations plane careened off the runway while touching down in the northern Malian city of Gao on Monday, the international organization said, injuring 11 people, this is according to a press release by the United Nations Multidimensional Integrated Stabilization Mission in Mali (MINUSMA)
“A MINUSMA plane from Bamako with eleven people (four passengers, all United Nations personnel and seven crew members) on board, made a hard landing at Gao airport,” the UN mission said, adding that one crew member was severely injured and ten others slightly.
According to Abdoulaye Maiga, a witness to the accident who works for an airport-security company, the plane had to make an emergency landing, at which point it “left the runway”.
A photo circulated on social media on Monday, appeared to show a badly damaged white plane, bearing UN insignia, in a puddle of mud.
UN peacekeepers were deployed to Mali in July 2013, after jihadists seized much of the north of the country the previous year.
The MINUSMA now has 13,000 troops in Mali, while France has 5,100 soldiers as part of Operation Barkhane, its anti-jihad force in the Sahel.
