Sudan military plane crashes at eastern airbase

A military transport aircraft crashed while attempting to land at an airbase in eastern Sudan on Tuesday, killing all crew members aboard in the latest tragedy to strike the conflict-torn nation.

The Ilyushin Il-76 went down as it approached Osman Digna airbase in Port Sudan, located near the city's main airport. Two military sources speaking to AFP cited a technical malfunction during the landing attempt as the cause of the crash.

The government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) has not disclosed the number of people killed in the incident. The airbase previously came under attack in May when drones struck multiple sites across Port Sudan, including the airfield.

The crash occurs as SAF confronts escalating setbacks throughout Sudan's central regions. On Monday, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) captured the Heglig oilfield—Sudan's largest oil facility—in West Kordofan province after government forces abandoned their positions. Military sources also reported on Tuesday that the army was withdrawing from Babnusa, a strategic location in West Kordofan that the RSF claims to have seized in early December.

Losing control of Heglig represents a devastating blow to the military government's finances. The facility processes between 80,000 and 100,000 barrels of crude oil daily for both Sudan and South Sudan, with the pipeline to Port Sudan running through the site. Ahmed Ibrahim, a former government adviser, suggested the RSF's assault on Heglig aims to draw South Sudan—where a fragile ceasefire barely holds—into the conflict as an ally.

The war's focal point has shifted to the Kordofan region following last month's fall of el-Fasher, which the United Nations characterized as a "crime scene." RSF territorial gains across central areas now threaten to split the country in two, potentially cutting off army-controlled territory and giving the paramilitary continuous control from Chad to Sudan's interior.

Coinciding with the crash, the United States sanctioned four Colombian nationals and four companies for allegedly recruiting hundreds of military veterans to fight for the RSF. Notably absent from the sanctions was Global Security Services Group, a UAE-based company that a November investigation by The Sentry linked to deploying Colombian mercenaries to Sudan. The UAE has repeatedly denied supporting the RSF.

Also Tuesday, the International Criminal Court sentenced Ali Kushayb, a former Janjaweed militia leader, to 20 years imprisonment for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Darfur between 2003 and 2004—the ICC's first prosecution of Darfur crimes.

Since April 2023, the conflict has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced over 12 million people, with 20 million facing severe food shortages.