Bodies Of Sundance Resources Executives Leave For Australia -Official

The bodies of six top executives of Australian iron ore mining firm, Sundance Resources Ltd. (SDL.AU) were repatriated from Congo-Brazzaville to their country Friday, accompanied by the company's new Chairman, George Jones, a Cameroon government told Dow Jones Newswires Saturday.

The company's chairman, Geoff Wedlock, Chief Executive Don Lewis, Company Secretary John Carr-Gregg and three other directors, including Australian magnate Ken Talbot, died late June, when their CASA C-212 twin turboprop plane crashed 10 kilometers into the Congo-Brazzaville border.

The mining executives were aboard the aircraft with five other persons: a U.S. citizen, two French nationals and two from the U.K.

The Sundance Resources executives were in Cameroon for a week-long mission to secure a permit that would authorize the company start exploiting ore in the Mbalam eastern locality of Cameroon. The Mbalam, estimated to cost some $3.4 billion, is owned by the Australian company's Cameroon partner Cam Iron S.A. The iron ore reserves stretch into Congo, where Sundance Resources also owns a mining site named Congo Iron.

The governments of Cameroon, Congo, U.S, France, U.K. and Australia closely worked together for the rescue and repatriation process, said the Cameroon official, who declined to named.

-By Emmanuel Tumanjong, contributing to Dow Jones Newswires; [phone],

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