MY RESOURCESFriday, July 09, 2010 Bodies of Sundance board...

MY RESOURCES
Friday, July 09, 2010


Bodies of Sundance board coming home

President of Congo awards posthumous medals to crash victims

The bodies of the six Sundance Resources mining executives killed in a plane crash in the Congo jungle are on their final journey home.

A Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade spokesperson said the bodies were flown out of Brazzaville on Thursday night (local time) and will have a brief stop-over in Paris before their flight to Australia.

The entire board of Sundance Resources was killed on June 19 when a twin-engine CASA 212 crashed in dense jungle in the Republic of Congo.

On board were chairman Geoff Wedlock, chief executive Don Lewis, company secretary John Carr-Gregg and directors Ken Talbot, John Jones and Craig Oliver.

They were on their way from Yaounde, the capital of Cameroon, to the site of Sundance's Mbalam iron ore project near Yangadou in northwest Congo.

On Thursday, the Congolese government held an official ceremony for the victims which included a military band and a ceremonial guard of approximately 100 servicemen.

The President of Congo presided over the ceremony and presented posthumous medals to those who died in the crash.

George Jones, who has resumed the role as Sundance chairman, also addressed the ceremony and is accompanying the bodies back to Australia.

The DFAT spokesperson thanked President Denis Sassou Nguesso and the government of the Republic of the Congo for their actions in response to the tragic accident.
AAP