KHARTOUM, 4 February 2005 — A Sudanese cargo plane crashed near the capital Khartoum yesterday, killing all the crew — one Sudanese and six Russians, the operator said.
The captain reported an emergency a few minutes before the Ilyushin-76, which entered service in 1984, went off radar screens, said Civil Aviation Authority Director Abu Bakr Jaafar.
“He (the captain) said there was something wrong with the fuel system ... A few minutes later it disappeared from the screens,” he told Reuters. “Of course, it is too early to tell what is the cause,” he added.
Gism Al-Khaleq, chairman of the Sudanese cargo company and aircraft owner Air West, said the plane was flying from Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates when it crashed in the desert.
Civil Aviation Minister Ali Tamim Fartak said the crew had been scheduled to land at Khartoum before flying on to Nyala, the capital of South Darfur state in the far west of Sudan. He said the plane was probably carrying aid supplies.
Witnesses at the crash site reported seeing a mangled and badly burned wreck. Two rescue trucks were present.
The crash took place at about 9 a.m. local (0600 GMT) in the desert about 50 km from the capital, Fartak said.
Sudan Denies Bombing Village
The Sudanese government yesterday denied its air force attacked a village in Darfur killing 100 villagers and insisted it had never used aerial bombardment against civilians.
“As soon as peace has been achieved in the south, some circles sparked a media campaign claiming that 100 civilians were killed in aerial bombardment,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
“The government is careful to protect civilians and will never shell them,” the ministry said, slamming what it called “inaccurate press statements.”
AU monitors have been seeking full access to Shangel-Topayi to determine what happened when Sudanese planes allegedly bombed the village, in what the AU said was a breach of a truce between rebels and government forces.
Crimes against civilians in Darfur are continuing while aid workers are “terrorized” and subject to arbitrary arrest, the United Nations envoy for Sudan said Wednesday.
Jan Pronk made the assessment two days after a UN panel accused the Khartoum government of gross and systematic human rights violations in Darfur but stopped short of labeling the violence in the region as genocide.
Port Sudan Deaths
Leaders of the Beja community of eastern Sudan yesterday demanded that the government investigate the deaths of civilians at the hands of police during last week’s riots in Port Sudan.
The demand followed two days of talks between Beja tribal leaders and government officials, which focused on Friday’s unrest in the city.
A memorandum handed to local officials urged the government to investigate the riots and its use of force to quell them, Mohammed Mohammed Al-Amin Tirik, chief of a main Beja tribe, told AFP by telephone from Port Sudan.
