46 killed in Sudan military plane crash during takeoff

The Antonov aircraft crashed on Tuesday while taking off from the Wadi Sayidna air base north of Omdurman. The aircraft crashed over a civilian house, suggesting that there were people dead on the ground

CAIRO: A Sudanese military aircraft crashed in the city of Omdurman, killing at least 46 people, military and health officials said Wednesday.

The Antonov aircraft crashed on Tuesday while taking off from the Wadi Sayidna air base north of Omdurman, the military said in a statement. Omdurman is the sister city of the capital, Khartoum.

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The military said that armed forces personnel and civilians were killed in the crash, but didn’t disclose how many. It didn’t say what caused the crash. The Health Ministry, however, said at least 46 people were killed, whose bodies were transferred to the Nau hospital in Omdurman.

The hospital also received five injured civilians, including two young siblings.

The Ministry said that the aircraft crashed over a civilian house in the Karrari district in Omdurman, suggesting that there were people dead on the ground.

Sudan has been in a state of civil war since 2023 when tensions between the military and a notorious paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces, exploded into open warfare. The fighting has wrecked urban areas and has been marked by atrocities, including mass rape and ethnically motivated killings, that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, especially in the western region of Darfur, according to the United Nations and international rights groups.

The war has intensified in recent months, with the military making steady advances against the RSF in Khartoum and elsewhere in the country. The RSF, which controls most of the western region of Darfur, said that it downed a military aircraft on Monday in Nyala, the provincial capital of South Darfur province.