Almost 400,000 Sudanese return home following displacement
Almost 400,000 people from Sudan have now returned to their homes in the last two and a half months following displacement caused by the conflict in the country, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) said on March 10th, according to the Middle East Monitor.
Between the period of December to March, roughly 396,737 people returned to areas that had been recaptured by the army from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), after the military’s recent operations in central part of Sudan, the United Nations migration agency said.
Since April 2023, Sudan has seen a lethal war unravel between the army and the RSF. The majority of those displaced went back to their homes in Sennar state, central Sudan. But thousands more people have returned to Khartoum.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk has said over 20, 000 have died in Sudan since April 2023, according to Anadolu Agency. But a number of deaths also occurred very recently, in a military plane crash.
Officials confirmed the death toll from a Sudanese military plane crash in Omdurman, near the capital Khartoum, rose to at least 46, Al Jazeera reported on February 26th.
The Antonov aircraft crashed late on February 25th while taking off from Wadi Seidna military airport in northern Omdurman.
Sudan’s Ministry of Information said the casualties included 17 military personnel, such as high-ranking officers, along with 29 civilians.
The Khartoum Media Office reported that 10 additional people sustained injuries.
Among those killed was Major-General Bahr Ahmed, a senior commander in Khartoum. The Sudanese military confirmed that both military and civilian casualties occurred.
As the conflict between the military and RSF continues in central Sudan and Khartoum, UN chief Antonio Guterres has urged for an end to the flow of weapons fuelling the war and called for safe humanitarian access at a February 14th summit in Ethiopia.
At the crash site, firefighting teams managed to control the fire. Military sources told Reuters that technical failures were the likely reason for the crash.
Residents in northern Omdurman described hearing a loud explosion, with the impact damaging multiple homes and causing power outages in surrounding areas.
Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan noted that the location of the crash suggests the RSF was not involved, as the paramilitary group was not in the area where the plane crashed.
The military is currently advancing in central Sudan and Khartoum as it continues its offensive against the RSF.
The crash took place just one day after the RSF claimed responsibility for downing a Russian-made Ilyushin plane in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur.
According to the UN, the conflict in Sudan has uprooted over 12 million people, resulting in the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.
Al Jazeera via Reuters, Anadolu Agency, Middle East Monitor
