Plane crashes in eastern Sudan killing 9 people as the war reaches the 100-day mark

CAIRO (AP) — A civilian plane crashed after taking off from an airport in eastern Sudan, killing nine people including four military personnel on board, the military said, as the conflict in the northeastern African country reached the 100-day mark on Monday with no signs of abating.

The military said in a statement that a child survived the late Sunday crash in Port Sudan, a city on the Red Sea that so far has been spared from the devastating war between the military and rival powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

The Antonov plane crashed shortly after taking off from the city’s airport, the military said. It blamed a technical failure for the crash without elaborating. The statement provided no further details.

Al-Taher Abdel-Rahman, the secretary of Finance Minister Gebreil Ibrahim, was among the dead, according to the minister, who took to social media to mourn his employee.

Sudan has plunged into chaos since mid-April when monthslong tensions between the military and the RSF exploded into open fighting in the capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere across the country.

“It’s been 100 days of war in Sudan, with a devastating toll on lives and infrastructure, but worse lies ahead,” said William Carter, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s director in Sudan.

The fighting has turned Khartoum and other urban areas into battlefields. The sprawling region of Darfur saw some of the worst bouts of violence in the conflict with the fighting turning into ethnic clashes.

The clashes have killed more than 3,000 people and wounded more than 6,000 others, Health Minister Haitham Mohammed Ibrahim said in televised comments last month. The casualty tally is likely much higher, according to doctors and activists. The U.N. children's agency said Monday it recorded the deaths of at least 435 children since the conflict broke out. More than 2,000 other children were wounded, it added.

More than 2.6 million people have fled their homes to safer areas inside Sudan, while more than 757,000 people have crossed into neighboring countries, according to the U.N. migration agency.

“The scale of the impact that this conflict has had on children in Sudan in the past 100 days is almost beyond comprehension,” said Ted Chaiban, UNICEF’s deputy executive director. “Each and every day, children are being killed, injured, abducted, and seeing the schools, hospitals and the vital infrastructure and life-saving supplies they rely on damaged, destroyed or looted.”

The U.N. refugee agency warned that about 300 South Sudanese refugee children in Sudan’s southern province of White Nile have been dying from suspected measles and malnutrition since the start of the conflict.

“These figures are staggering — civilians who have nothing to do with this conflict are sadly uprooted from their homes and livelihoods on a daily basis,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said.

The war has also pushed more than 67% of Sudan’s health care facilities out of service, according the World Health Organization. The agency said it documented 51 attacks on medical facilities and personnel, leaving 10 people dead and 24 others wounded.

The agency warned about disease outbreaks, including malaria, measles, dengue, and acute diarrhea, as the fighting has disrupted basic public health services.

The conflict derailed Sudanese hopes of restoring the country’s fragile transition to democracy, which had begun after a popular uprising forced the military’s removal of longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir in April 2019. A coup, led by the military and RSF, disrupted the democratic transition in October 2021.

Carter, of the NRC, warned about a “total collapse” in the country as international efforts have so far failed to establish a cease-fire to allow humanitarian support to millions of people impacted by the war.

“The first 100 days drew attention, but it’s fading. We must sustain efforts and apply diplomacy and mediation to tangibly impact civilians in Sudan,” he said.

Humanitarian group CARE International called for a cease-fire and the establishment of a safe corridor to allow the delivery of basic goods and services to those trapped in the fighting, as well as funds to meet the growing needs of Sudanese.

“The world cannot afford to look away from the worsening situation in Sudan as it has the potential to destabilize the entire region,” said David MacDonald, CARE’s country director in Sudan.

Talks between the military and the RSF the Saudi Arabian coastal city of Jeddah repeatedly failed to stop the fighting. The Jeddah talks were brokered by Saudi Arabia and the United States.

Pro-democracy leaders, meanwhile, were meeting Monday afternoon in Egypt’s capital, Cairo, the first such gathering of Sudanese politicians since the breakout of the war.