Peacekeepers probe deadly Darfur helicopter crash
(Updates death count, adds police comments)
By Andrew Heavens
KHARTOUM, Sept 29 (Reuters) - A helicopter working for peacekeepers in Darfur crashed on Monday, killing four people, and the mission said it was checking whether the aircraft had come under fire.
The private helicopter, hired by a company doing contract work for the U.N.-African Union force, came down minutes after leaving the town of Nyala with a crew of four, a spokesman for the UNAMID force said.
It crashed near a camp for displaced people in the region of western Sudan.
At least four helicopters in use by the force have been shot at since August, but no casualties have been reported before.
"We are looking into unconfirmed reports there was shooting," spokesman Kemal Saiki said.
"Aid workers got to the scene and were able to recover two bodies," he said. Two other people inside the wreckage are now also confirmed dead, he added.
A Sudanese police spokesman said three of the dead were Russian and the pilot was Sudanese.
Saiki said the crash site was near Kalma camp for displaced people, where more than 30 people died last month after government security forces raided the settlement, saying they were searching for suspects and weapons.
The Sudanese government says many rebels and bandits use Kalma as a base and weapons store. Residents deny that.
Major-General Hashim Osman, Sudan police assistant director-general for security and criminal investigations, told reporters in Khartoum officers had reports the helicopter was fired on by people inside Kalma.
But UNAMID spokesman Saiki said investigators had still not found proof of an attack.
Kalma resident Omar Ali Omar Suleiman told Reuters by phone he heard sounds like shots before the helicopter crashed just north of the settlement, but he could not be certain.
Saiki said the Sudan-registered Mi-8 helicopter had been contracted to transport rations to UNAMID bases across Darfur.
More than five years of fighting in Darfur has killed 200,000 people and driven more than 2.5 million from their homes. UN agencies and aid groups have launched the world's largest humanitarian operation in response.
Khartoum accuses Western media of exaggerating the conflict and puts the death count at 10,000. (Editing by Tim Pearce)
