JUBA // At least 36 people were killed on Wednesday when a plane crashed shortly after taking off from South Sudan’s capital Juba, rescue workers said.
Police and rescue workers pulled bodies of men, women and children out of the wreckage of the Russian-built Antonov An-12 cargo plane, which smashed into a farming community on an island on the White Nile river, seconds after taking off.
“So far 36 bodies have been collected and brought to hospitals,” South Sudan Red Cross official Majju Hillary said, adding that all those killed had been on board the airplane.
A police officer, however, told Reuters that at least 41 people died.
Police at the site said they did not know how many had been on board the plane when it crashed – nor if people may have been hit when it smashed into the island – and so were unable to give an official death toll. Two survivors were pulled out of the twisted metal hulk of the plane but one of them later died, with a young boy the only survivor, the Red Cross said, adding the number of dead may still rise.
“We can’t assess this is the final toll, as some debris is too heavy to be lifted and needs some heavy machinery,” Mr Hillary added.
The five-member Armenian crew were all killed, the Armenian embassy in Egypt said.
Cargo planes to remote parts of South Sudan often carry passengers as well as goods.
It is common for the security services to put family members on the cargo planes bound for the Paloich oil fields in Upper Nile state even if they are not on the manifest, according to Kenyi Galla, assistant operations manager for Combined Air Services, a company that operates chartered flights across South Sudan.
“Normally [this flight] used to carry 12 people, but the problem is they added more people,” he said. Russian television channel LifeNews quoted an unnamed source at the Russian aviation agency as saying that the plane appeared to have been overloaded.
The main fuselage of the plane ploughed into thick woodland, with debris scattered around the riverbank in a wide area, according to a witness.
Juba’s airport is the busiest in the war-torn country, which is the size of Spain and Portugal combined but with few tarred roads.
The airport hosts regular commercial flights, as well as a constant string of military aircraft and cargo planes delivering aid to remote regions cut off by road.
Civil war broke out in December 2013 when president Salva Kiir accused his former deputy Riek Machar of planning a coup, setting off a cycle of retaliatory killings that has split the poverty-stricken, landlocked country along ethnic lines.
* Agencies
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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