Sudanese military plane crashes near Khartoum, 46 killed and 10 injured

A Sudanese military plane crashed Tuesday (February 25) on the outskirts of the capital, Khartoum. The crash killed multiple officers and civilians, the army said.

“After a final tally, the number of martyrs reached 46, with 10 injured,” the Khartoum regional government’s media office said in a statement.

The army-aligned health ministry had previously reported at least 19 dead.

The Antonov aircraft went down during takeoff from Wadi Seidna air base, one of the army’s largest military installations in Omdurman, part of greater Khartoum.

The Sudanese military, locked in a conflict with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since April 2023, said in a statement that both military personnel and civilians were killed or injured in the crash.

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“The injured have been taken to hospital, and firefighting teams managed to contain the blaze at the crash site,” the statement said.

AFP cited a military source as saying that a technical malfunction caused the crash.

The Karari Resistance Committee, part of a volunteer network providing aid in Sudan, had initially said that 10 bodies and several injured people were taken to Al-Nao hospital in Omdurman.

Witnesses reported damage to several nearby homes and power outages in surrounding neighbourhoods after a loud explosion.

A witness said the plane had been flying south from northern Sudan when it crashed near the air base.

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The crash came just a day after the RSF claimed responsibility for shooting down a Russian-made Ilyushin fighter jet in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur. The RSF alleged the aircraft was destroyed along with its crew early Monday morning.

The incidents mark an escalation in the conflict as the army reports recent gains in central Sudan and Khartoum in its offensive against the RSF.

Since April 2023, Sudanese army chief Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamadan Daglo– once allies– have been engaged in a power struggle.

The fighting has killed tens of thousands and caused what the United Nations describes as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises in recent memory.

With inputs from AFP