South Sudan's defence minister has been killed in a plane crash along with 23 other people, most of them army officers.
The minister's plane crashed some 375km from the southern capital Juba.
No reason has been given for the crash, but an attack has been ruled out.
Besides South Sudan Defence Minister Dominic Dim Deng, an adviser to South Sudan leader and national First Vice President Salva Kiir, was also on board the plane.
The UN said the plane was a Beechcraft 1900 operated by South Sudan Air Connection travelling from Wau to Juba. It had sent a helicopter to the crash site.
The accident comes a day after southern army officials said Sudan's northern and southern forces had agreed to withdraw from an oil-rich border flashpoint where clashes in the last month have killed dozens.
The clashes in Unity state, near one of Sudan's largest oil fields, could disrupt a 2005 north-south peace deal that ended Africa's longest civil war, shared wealth and power, and created separate northern and southern armies.
