Russian Embassy Consul had meeting Friday in Juba with the administration of the airline company operating AN-12 plane which crashed in South Sudan on November 4. During the meeting, it was agreed that the Armenian Embassy in Egypt and the Russian Embassy in Uganda will ensure the implementation of all the legal functions, while the airline company – in cooperation with the insurance company - will ensure transportation of the bodies to Armenia and Russia respectively, Armenia’s MFA Facebook page says.

“Considering the circumstance that the Juba Airport is entirely close at weekends, following the solution of technical issues, it will be possible to transfer the bodies of the Armenian citizens to their homeland in coming days. Armenian Embassy Consul to Egypt is in Juba. Additional information will be provided separately,” the MFA Facebook post reports.

Armenian News-NEWS.am had learned that this cargo plane belonged to the UAE-registered Ala Avia International LTD, owned by Garnik Papikyan, who is also the proprietor of the TaronAvia aviation services company.

We also managed to find out that Papikyan himself had reached an arrangement with the Armenian pilots and the other crewmembers of this plane, and taken them to work in Africa.

Dozens of people, including the aircraft’s crewmembers and passengers as well as people on the ground, were killed in Wednesday’s crash in South Sudan.

The cargo plane’s crewmembers included Armenians. They were First Pilot and aircraft commander Gevorg Tovmasyan, Second Pilot Samvel Hambardzumyan, Engineer Samvel Mkrtchyan, and Technicians Armen Antonyan, and Suren Petrosyan.