![John Garang (pictured on 20 July)]()
Garang's former rebel group is holding a crisis
meeting in Kenya |
Sudan's
government has retracted a report that Vice-President John Garang
had landed safely after contact was lost with his aircraft.
A government spokesman said on state television there was no
concrete new information about the plane's location.
Mr Garang went missing on Sunday while flying back from Uganda
after talks with Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.
The former rebel leader was sworn in three weeks ago as part of a
peace deal ending a decades-long civil war.
Separately, a senior official who asked not to be named told AFP
news agency a previous report that the plane had landed in southern
Sudan was "wrong".
A search operation would continue on Monday, he added.
Contradictory reports
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![]() Garang left Kampala heading for the New
Sight camp in southern Sudan and contact was lost with the
plane ![]()
|
Earlier on Sunday, state television had said he was missing, then
that he had landed safely at a military base in the south.
But a later report said authorities were still trying to locate
his plane, lost between Uganda and southern Sudan.
Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir contacted Uganda's President
Museveni over Mr Garang's disappearance, state television said,
reading a statement from Mr Bashir's office.
"Garang left Kampala heading for the New Sight camp in southern
Sudan and contact was lost with the plane," the statement said.
Helicopter search
Mr Garang left Uganda after talking with President Museveni about
strengthening ties between the two countries.
But air traffic controllers in Khartoum reportedly lost contact
with the aircraft - some reports talk of a military helicopter,
others of a plane - on its way back.
Military helicopters were sent to look for it, but have not
located it.
Mr Garang's former rebel movement, which he steered through a
bloody 21-year civil war against the government in the north, is
said to have been holding a crisis meeting in Kenya.
The conflict in Sudan ended with the signing of the peace
agreement in January.
Three weeks ago, more than a million people filled the streets of
Khartoum as he returned to the capital for the first time and was
sworn in as Sudan's first vice-president and president of the south.
