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A Sudanese military aircraft carrying 31 senior army officers from the capital Khartoum to Adar Yill, Upper Nile, crashed at the Adar-Yill airstrip on Wednesday. "The plane lost control on touchdown," a Sudanese official at the Nairobi embassy told IRIN. The official said that 15 people had been killed, including Colonel Ibrahim Shams al-Din, the minister of state for defence.
Sixteen others were rescued from the aircraft, including the deputy chief of staff of operations, General Ja'far. According to the official, Shams al-Din was a member of the Revolutionary Council that overthrew the civilian government in 1989, and brought the current head of state, President Umar al-Bashir, to power. He said Shams al-Din and the officers were on a "routine visit to a military post".
In a report monitored by the BBC, Sudanese official television said the general command of the Armed Forces had announced "the death of its martyrs... [who] were on an inspection visit in the area".
Names of the dead released by the government were Staff Lt-Gen Amir Qasim Musa; Maj Dr Malik al-Aqib al-Haj al-Khadr; Maj-Gen Bakri Umar Khalifah; Maj-Gen Sayyid al-Ubayd Abd al-Halim; Maj-Gen Kamal-al-Din Ali al-Amin; Maj-Gen Ali Arik Kakuwan; Maj-Gen Yasin Arabi Muhammad; Maj Faysal Isa Abu Fatmah; Brig-Gen Eng Umar al-Amin Karrar; Staff-Brig Ahmad Yusuf Mustafa; Staff-Brig Jemmy Apolo Modeh; Col-Eng Uthman Ahmad al-Mustafa; Lt-Gen Umar Uthman Ali Garamba; and Cpl Muhammad Ahmad Muhammad Ya'qub.
This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions