PORT-AU-PRINCE, Oct 12, 2009 (AFP) -
The bodies of six Uruguayans and five Jordanians killed in a UN plane crash last week will be repatriated on Tuesday, the UN monitoring force in Haiti, MINUSTAH, said Monday.
The bodies were recovered from the crash site on Saturday and were brought to the Haitian capital. They will be flown to their home countries after a ceremony at a MINUSTAH facility, the Brazilian-led force said in a statement.
The 11 MINUSTAH soldiers -- passengers and crew -- were killed when their Spanish-made C-212 plane slammed Friday into the side of a mountain during a reconnaissance mission near the border with the Dominican Republic.
Haitian Prime Minister Michele Pierre-Louis has presented his condolences to MINUSTAH and the families of the victims, and has suggested an investigation into the cause of the crash.
UN and Jordanian experts were expected to arrive in Haiti to open an investigation, MINUSTAH said.
The Uruguayan Air force, which has also sent two of its colonels to assist the probe, said on Sunday that turbulence was a likely cause of the fatal crash.
MINUSTAH has been deployed in the impoverished Caribbean nation of eight million people since mid-2004, fielding more than 9,000 uniformed personnel.
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