Mystery of downed airplane in Sudan deepens as Kyrgyzstan insists aircraft had been de-registered

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The mystery surrounding a crashed cargo plane in Sudan purportedly downed by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces deepened Tuesday as authorities insisted the aircraft had been de-registered in Kyrgyzstan.

Just who was flying the Ilyushin Il-76 at night over war-torn Darfur remains in question. The aircraft previously was linked to an effort by the United Arab Emirates to arm the paramilitary force known as the RSF, something the UAE has strenuously denied despite evidence to the contrary.

But the plane's crash early Monday highlights the chaos gripping Sudan since April 2023, when the RSF and Sudan's military went to war. Their conflict has killed over 24,000 people, forced millions to flee their homes and has left some families eating grass in a desperate attempt to survive as famine sweeps parts of the country.

Mobile phone footage posted online showed RSF fighters among the plane's burning wreckage, claiming they shot it down with a surface-to-air missile. Identity documents shown included a Russian passport and an ID that linked to a UAE-based company, whose phone number was disconnected.

The Russian Embassy in Sudan since Monday has been investigating.

A crumpled safety card, also purportedly from the aircraft, identified the plane as flown by New Way Cargo of Kyrgyzstan. However, Zuurakan Kadyrova of New Way Cargo told The Associated Press on Tuesday that her firm's lease of the aircraft expired at the end of 2023.

“Since that time, we have no records regarding the aircraft,” she said. “We are saddened by the news of the incident that occurred in Sudan and express our condolences to the crew and their families.”

Kyrgyzstan's state-run Kabar news agency separately reported, citing the country's Foreign Ministry, that the plane had been removed from its aircraft registry in January this year “and transferred to the registration of the Republic of Sudan.” No Kyrgyz nationals died in the crash, the report said.

For its part, the RSF maintained the aircraft belonged to the Sudanese military and had been operated by “jihadist militia groups.” It said it collected the aircraft's black box “along with crucial documents and intelligence revealing the aircraft’s operations” that it did not publish.

Sudan has been unstable since a popular uprising forced the removal of longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir in 2019. The short-lived transition to democracy was derailed when the army’s chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan and Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo of the RSF joined forces to lead a military coup in October 2021. They began battling each other in 2023.

Al-Bashir faces charges at the International Criminal Court over carrying out a genocidal campaign in the early 2000s in the western Darfur region with the Janjaweed, the precursor to the RSF. Rights groups and the U.N. say the RSF and allied Arab militias again are attacking ethnic African groups in this war.

The group Conflict Observatory, which is funded by the U.S. State Department and has been monitoring the war in Sudan, linked New Way Cargo’s Ilyushin Il-76s to arming the RSF in a report this month.

It said the airline had facilitated UAE arms transfers through flights to Aéroport International Maréchal Idriss Deby in Amdjarass, Chad — flights the UAE has claimed have been for supporting a local hospital.

Amdjarass is just across the border from Malha, where the shoot-down reportedly happened.

It's unclear who would have taken control of the aircraft in Sudan. Officials with Burhan’s government, largely based at Port Sudan in the east as the capital, Khartoum, remains a war zone, could not be immediately reached for comment.

Meanwhile, across Sudan, more than 25 million people — about half the population — are in need of aid, aid group Save the Children said Tuesday.

“Sudanese children are surviving bombs and bullets, only to risk dying from starvation and disease," said Mohamed Abdiladif, its interim country director in Sudan.