Twenty suspects held by Sudan after plane Hijack: 2nd UPDATE
2nd UPDATE: Eritrean Hijackers Held By Sudan Authorities
DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
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KHARTOUM, Sudan, Aug 27, 2004 (AP) — Eritrean deportees hijacked a plane that left Libya carrying about about 80 fellow Eritreans and forced it to land Friday in the Sudanese capital before surrendering to security forces, Sudanese, Libyan and U.N. officials said.
Libyan officials said the plane departed the southeastern city of al-Kafra late Thursday carrying about 80 Eritrean and 145 Nigerian deportees, who were destined to return to their home countries after entering Libya illegally.
Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel-Rahman Shalqam said the plane, a Libyan-owned C-130, first stopped in the Nigerian city of Lagos to return the Nigerians before leaving for Eritrea with the remaining deportees, but after take off four Eritreans armed with knives forced the pilot to fly to Khartoum.
The hijackers told the crew “that we don’t want to return to Eritrea for political reasons,” Shalqam told The Associated Press in the Libyan capital, Tripoli.
Thousands of people from African nations illegally enter Libya seeking employment, fleeing conflicts in their own countries or determined to find passage out of north African to Europe.
Sudan ‘s Foreign Ministry said the plane’s Libyan pilot called Sudanese civil aviation authorities saying his aircraft had been hijacked and that he needed to make an emergency landing in Khartoum.
After landing at about 11:40 a.m. (0840 GMT), the hijackers contacted authorities from inside the plane demanding direct talks with U.N. officials, the ministry said in a statement.
But on noticing a large number of Sudanese security personnel surrounding the plane on the tarmac, the hijackers ordered the pilot to take off at 0920 GMT, forcing him to fly the aircraft for about 40 minutes above Khartoum until Sudanese authorities notified the Eritreans that a U.N. delegation was awaiting them at the airport.
The C-130 plane again landed soon after and the hijackers surrendered without resistance, the statement said, adding that none of the passengers, who included women and children, were injured. One member of the eight-man Libyan crew was slightly injured.
Police detained three to four men identified as the hijackers for questioning and took the remaining passengers to temporary accommodation in a nearby village. It was unclear if or when they would be sent to Eritrea.
Michael Lindenbauer, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees deputy representative in Khartoum, told The Associated Press that he went to the airport to help end the standoff and interview the passengers.
Lt. Gen. Sayed al-Husseini, the deputy director general of Sudanese police, said the hijackers had threatened to kill the crew if they didn’t land the plane in Khartoum because they were afraid to return home, where the thought “they would be treated harshly and abused” by Eritrean authorities.
Mohammed Ismail Hamat, a top official from the Sudan-based opposition Eritrea Liberation Front, said the deportees were the fourth group of Eritreans recently expelled by Libya, describing them as mostly young Eritreans who escaped with their families to avoid military service and the harsh life in Eritrea.
Hamat said the hijackers are seeking asylum and talks with the United Nations.
Eritrea, a tiny country in the Horn of Africa, gained independence from neighboring Ethiopia in 1993 after a 30-year guerrilla war. A 2 1/2-year war broke out again between both nations in 1998, costing both sides tens of thousands of lives and an estimated $1 million per day until a cease-fire was signed in December 2000.