Authorities in Upper Nile State say they have buried 22 victims of the Wednesday plane crash in a mass grave in Juba.

The officials say 29 of the dead were from their state.

The state minister of Physical Infrastructure, Buruach Louch, says three bodies were collected by their relatives but he could not give an account of the other four.

“We have been allocated to Jebel area, around checkpoint, where we have been allocated [land] by the Juba City Council …we have buried about 22 bodies in that grave,” Mr Buruach told Eye Radio.

The burial, he says, was done last evening in the presence of officials from the Allied Air Service, the company that operated the Russian-made anotnov when it crashed into swampy grassland less than a mile away from the airport.

Mr Burach says the state caretaker governor, Chol Thon, has declared three days of mourning.

“We are now arranging everything at his house [in Juba]… and the final funeral prayers will be on Sunday, where we are going to invite people from the presidency, from Central Equatoria government and the others,” he said.

The official figures of those killed in the crash are yet to be released.

Our reporter counted 41 bodies at the scene of the crash while two survivors are undergoing treatment at a Chinese hospital in Juba.

The South Sudan Red Cross Society says it has collected 38 bodies; more have been trapped in the wreckage.

The national Ministry of Transport has formed a five-member committee to investigate the circumstances leading to the crash.

But Presidential spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny says it could have been as a result of technical failure. The cargo plane was destined for the oil area of Paloch, Upper Nile.