Hijackers of a Sudanese airliner surrendered to authorities in Libya after releasing all the passengers yesterday, Libya’s aviation authority said.
The airliner was seized on Tuesday after leaving Sudan’s war-battered Darfur region for Khartoum and landed at the remote Sahara desert oasis of Kufrah in southeastern Libya.
Libya’s Civil Aviation Authority said 95 people had been on the Boeing 737/200.
The hijackers first released the passengers and two crew members, but kept six crew members hostage while negotiations continued.
“The two hijackers were transported to one of the halls at Kufrah airport after giving themselves up,” Libyan state news agency Jana cited aviation authority head Mohamed Shlibek as saying.
He said no one was left on the plane after all the passengers and crew were released. There was no immediate word on the identity of the hijackers.
Shlibek said the hijackers had demanded that the plane be refueled to fly to Paris. Sudan’s Civil Aviation Authority said the two hijackers had demanded refugee status there.
The pilot had told Libyan authorities they were from a branch of the Sudanese Liberation Movement (SLM), a Darfur rebel group, and wanted to meet their leader Abdel Wahed Mohammed al-Nur in Paris, Jana said.
But Nur’s faction denied the hijackers were its members.
“We categorically deny the responsibility of our movement in this hijacking operation,” he said in a telephone interview on al-Jazeera TV.
Another SLM faction that signed a 2006 deal with Khartoum, which was rejected by Nur, said the passengers on the hijacked plane had included seven of its officers, three of them members of a transitional Darfur regional government.
The plane took off from the South Darfur capital, Nyala, bound for Khartoum. Libya granted permission for the plane to land after the pilot said it was running out of fuel, Libya’s state news agency said.
All the passengers were Sudanese except two Egyptian police officers, two Ethiopians and one Ugandan.
The passengers had reportedly been given water but no food and some fainted when the air conditioning failed in the searing desert heat.
Sudan earlier called on the Libyan authorities to arrest and deport to Khartoum the “terrorist” hijackers, saying that Libya was being “very helpful” as the crisis entered its second day.
“We are condemning first the hijacking of a civilian airplane and we are now in continuous contact and consultation with the Libyan authorities in Kufra airport,” Sudanese foreign ministry spokesman Ali al-Sadiq said.
Before the surrender, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said in France that “everything is being considered” to protect the lives of those on board, while not saying explicitly whether France was prepared to receive the plane.
Nur “is a true leader of a rebellion, of the resistance in Darfur, who says that he does not know these people and that he absolutely refuses to use these methods,” Kouchner told Europe 1 radio.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in