“The Acting Joint Special Representative of United Nations-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur - UNAMID, Aichatou Mindaoudou, is saddened by today’s plane crash, which took the life of an entire delegation chaired by the Minister of Guidance and Endowments, Ghazi Al-Saddiq, as well as the crew,” a UNAMID news release stated.

“On behalf of UNAMID, Ms. Mindaoudou offers her deepest sympathies and heartfelt condolences to the bereaved families of all victims and to the Government and the people of Sudan,” the news release added.

“We heard a huge explosion, and at first we thought it was a gas canister,” Timothy Akinyela, 50, a newspaper reporter who was watching sports in a bar near the crash site, told Reuters.

“Then there were some more explosions afterwards and everyone ran out. It was terrifying. There was confusion and shouting,” he said.

Among the dead on the plane was the spokesman for the Nigerian Oil Ministry, according to AP. The number of dead on the ground was not known.A dozen burned corpses were carried out of the building damaged in the crash.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan declared three days of national mourning and ordered an full investigation into the cause of the crash, Al Jazeera reported.

It was Nigeria’s worst crash since September 1992, when a military transport plane crashed into a swamp shortly after takeoff from Lagos, killing all 163 people onboard.

The Lagos airport is a major hub for West Africa, and 2.3 million passengers passed through it in 2009, according to the most recent statistics, AFP reported.  The accident came just one day after  another plane crash on Saturday night in the capital of the nearby Ghana, where a cargo plane overshot a runway and hit a passenger bus loaded with passengers, killing at least 10 people. The Allied Air cargo plane had departed from Lagos and was to land in Accra.