The Sudanese Ministry of Justice clarified in an official statement, on Saturday, how the Minister of Justice Nasreddine Abdel Bari survived the crash of the military cargo plane in El-Geneina, the capital of West Darfur State, last Thursday, which killed 18, including three judges and military personnel.
The ministry said in its statement, “It turned out that the Minister of Justice had decided to return to Khartoum without the delegation because he was traveling out of Sudan on Friday night, after boarding the plane and sitting and his guards on their seats, two women who were carrying a child entered each one of them and was with her husband (apparently The Minister), who was also carrying a child. ”
"One of the crew members asked the women to get out of the part where Minister Nasreddin Abdel-Bari was sitting and sit in the part designated for cargo from the plane. Here the minister told him that they could not sit with their children on that part of the plane, but the crew members were insisting Moreover, because of the limited number of seats.
At that moment, the minister decided to get off the plane and return to Medina and asked the two women to sit in his place and the location of his personal guard. The Minister left the airport to the headquarters of the General Secretariat of the Government of West Darfur State, where the Vice-President of the Sovereign Council, the Prime Minister and the rest of the delegation were holding a meeting with a group of the two conflicting tribal groups in El-Geneina.
The statement concluded, "Immediately after the meeting ended, the minister learned that the plane that he intended to travel to Khartoum had unfortunately gone down, and that everyone inside was killed."
On Thursday, the official spokesman for the Sudanese Armed Forces issued a statement announcing the killing of a number of soldiers and civilians in the plane crash, near Al-Geneina, the capital of West Darfur State.
The spokesman indicated that the Antonov 12 plane had taken off from El Geneina Airport and crashed about five minutes after take off, killing its crew and civilian passengers on board.
The spokesman said that the victims are the crew of the plane, which consists of 7 members (four officers and three other ranks), in addition to three judges and eight civilians, including four children.