Six dead as plane carrying coronavirus aid crashes in Somalia

A plane carrying aid supplies for use in the fight against the coronavirus crashed in Somalia on Monday, killing all six people on board, the Somali transport minister said. He declined to speculate on the cause of the crash, but a former defence minister said he had spoken to a witness at the airfield who said it appeared to have been shot down. 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. Six people — the pilot, copilot, flight engineer and a trainee pilot, as well as two people working for the airline — were onboard, Transport Minister Mohamed Salad said. Salad said he was sending a unit to investigate, who will arrive on Tuesday, and welcomed international assistance. State-run Somalia News Agency said the plane belonged to African Express Airways and was ferrying supplies for use in the fight against the coronavirus.<br/>