December 28, 2003	Sunday	Ziqa’ad 4, 1424

DHAKA, Dec 27: Fifteen Bangladeshi soldiers on a UN peace mission in West Africa are feared dead in a plane crash in Benin, the military said on Saturday.

The peacekeepers — 13 of whom were based in Sierra Leone and two in Liberia — were returning home on holiday, the army said in a statement in Dhaka.

The 15 were on a Boeing 727 jet that crashed on Thursday off the West African nation of Benin with 161 people on board. More than 20 people, including the pilot, survived the Christmas Day crash. Dozens of others were still missing and feared dead, officials said.

The peacekeepers, mostly army officers, had boarded the Union des Transports Africains plane, during a stopover in Freetown, Sierra Leone. They were planning to catch a flight home from Beirut, Lebanon.

The plane, carrying mostly Lebanese workers, clipped a building at the end of the runway and plunged into the Atlantic Ocean, scattering bodies and debris along the beach and into the water.

Nearly 3,000 Bangladeshi troops are on a peacekeeping mission in war-ravaged Liberia, while another 1,504 are stationed in neighbouring Sierra Leone.—AP