Four bodies found in Congo plane wreckage

Four unidentified bodies have been found in Congo amid the wreckage of a plane that had been carrying staff of Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi, the government said on Tuesday.

The cargo plane, believed to have been carrying around eight passengers and crew, crashed last Thursday in Democratic Republic of Congo's central province of Sankuru.

The Antonov An-72 transport aircraft was flying to the capital Kinshasa when it came down near the town of Kole. It had disappeared from radar an hour after taking off from Goma in the east of the country.

"Experts confirm that the debris found near Kole, Sankuru province, in the centre of the country, are indeed those of the An-72," the president's office said in a statement.

Among those on board were Tshisekedi's driver, a logistics manager, bodyguards and two Russian pilots, Congolese and Russian authorities said.

A team of investigators, backed by experts from the United Nations peacekeeping mission, have reached the crash site, the president's office said. The cause of the accident was not yet clear.