Sudanese news source claims plane shot down in west was “evacuating” rebels

Sudanile web site on August 30, 2003

The Sudanese army spokesman, Staff Lt-Gen, Muhammad Bashir Sulayman, said yesterday that Sudanese air force shot down an unidentified aircraft and it was suspected to be connected with the rebel movement [Sudan’s Liberation Movement], in Darfur region, western Sudan.

The spokesman did neither specify the number of passengers who were on board nor their fate.

Meanwhile, the Sudanese Media Centre, (SMC) told the media that ‘the plane was surveying the area in the region while evacuating outlaws [rebels] who had been injured and managed to escape.’

The SMC added that ‘as it seems, this was the same plane which carried the outlaw Mani Arkoi, Minawi after he was seriously injured in the battlefield’.