By AFP

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Search teams have found wreckage from a government cargo plane that went missing last week in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a senior aid worker said Tuesday.

The wreck of the Antonov 72 was found in Sankuru province in the centre of the country, Crispin Mukadi from the Catholic Relief Service told AFP.

The plane, which had been supplying equipment for a visit to Goma by President Felix Tshisekedi, disappeared with eight people aboard after taking off in bad weather from the eastern city of Beni on Thursday.

Mukadi said he had visited the crash site seven kilometres (four miles) from the village of Okoto—around 75 kilometres from the provincial capital Kole.

"I went there accompanied by a few villagers," he said. "I discovered a lot of debris from a plane. I saw a bit of a blue-and-white coloured plane carrying the number 72903."

Villagers had told him that the local chief had ordered them to bury four bodies, including the decomposing body of a white person, he told AFP by phone.

The crash had happened in an area not covered by the phone network, he added.

Two Russians had been among the passengers, according to Moscow's embassy in Kinshasa.