Hijacked plane passengers released

Sudanese rebels release 87 passengers on a Libyan airstrip, but the crew remain on-board

Hijackers have released 87 passengers from a Boeing 737 seized on Tuesday shortly after taking off from the Darfur region, but are still holding the eight crew members hostage, the Libyan aviation authority said today.

The plane, which had been en route to the Sudanese capital of Khartoum, was taken over by suspected Darfur rebels and diverted to a second world war airstrip in Kufra, a remote town in the Libyan Sahara desert.

Sudan's foreign ministry called the hijacking an "irresponsible terrorist act" and said they wanted the hijackers to be extradited.

The Kufra airport director, Khaled Sasiya, said he spoke to one of the hijackers, who identified himself as Yassin and said they were from the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), led by Abdel Wahid al-Nur. But a spokesman for the movement denied any involvement. Yahia Bolad said the group had "no relation to this act".

Libyan officials said the passengers were released yesterday. There have been reports the hijackers demanded fuel and maps to fly to Paris.

Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, told Europe-1 radio that the SLM leader, who lives in Paris, denied he was in contact with the hijackers. "He says he doesn't know these people and that he absolutely refuses to use such methods," Kouchner said. "It's not his way. He's rather a peaceful man."

The hijacked airliner belonged to a private company, Sun Air, the Sudanese civil aviation authority said in a statement carried by the Sudan Media Center, which has close links to the government.

The Kufra airport director said the hijacker he spoke to told him that the poor air-conditioning system on the plane was creating breathing problems and that some passengers had fainted.

An airpot security official said among the passengers were former rebels who have become members of the Transitional Darfur Regional Authority, an interim government body. The authority is responsible for implementing a peace agreement reached in 2006 between the government and one of the rebel factions.

There was conflicting information about the hijackers' identities and how many there were.

A Libyan official at the Kufra airport said on Tuesday that there were 10 hijackers belonging to a Darfur rebel group. The official Sudanese news agency, SUNA, reported Wednesday that Sun Air put the number of the hijackers at four.

Sudan's consul in Kufra, Mohammed al-Bila Othman, told Suna there were about 500 security and police personnel at the airport as well as ambulances and firefighting vehicles.

The chief of police of the southern Darfur province, Major General Fathul-Rahamn Othman, told Suna that the hijacking aimed to "destabilize security".

Darfur's ethnic African rebels have been fighting the Arab-led Khartoum government since 2003 in a conflict the UN says has killed up to 300,000 people and driven 2.5 million from their homes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/27/sudan?gusrc=rss&feed=worldnews

Fonte: Flight Safety Information 29/08/2008.