The death toll from a Sudanese military plane crash in the city of Omdurman on the outskirts of the capital Khartoum has increased to at least 46 people, officials said.

The Antonov aircraft crashed late on Tuesday during takeoff from the Wadi Seidna military airport in northern Omdurman, part of greater Khartoum.

17 military personnel, including high-ranking
officers, and 29 civilians are among the victims, according to the country’s Ministry of Information.

The Khartoum Media Office on Wednesday said the crash also injured 10 others.

Major-General Bahr Ahmed, a senior commander in Khartoum, was reportedly among the dead.

The Sudanese military, which has been at war with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) since April 2023, released a statement confirming that military personnel and civilians had been killed and reporting that firefighting teams had managed to contain the blaze at the crash site.

The statement did not provide details on what had caused the crash, but military sources told Reuters news agency that it was most likely due to technical reasons.

Residents in northern Omdurman reported a loud explosion from the crash, which damaged several homes and caused power outages in surrounding neighbourhoods.

“The plane crashing shortly after take off shows that the RSF is not behind the attack because the RSF is not present in the area where the plane crashed,” Al Jazeera’s Hiba Morgan said, reporting from Khartoum.

‘Further escalation’

The war in Sudan, which has killed tens of thousands, erupted after a rift emerged between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamadan Daglo over the future structure of the government.

The army is currently making significant advances in central Sudan and Khartoum in its multi-front offensive against the RSF.

The plane crash came a day after the RSF claimed responsibility for downing a Russian-made Ilyushin plane in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur.

The World Food Programme, the largest provider of food aid in Sudan, said on Wednesday it was also forced to pause food distributions in Sudan’s famine-plagued Zamzam camp in North Darfur.

The camp has been the target of repeated attacks by the RSF.

“Without immediate assistance, thousands of desperate families in Zamzam could starve in the coming weeks,” said Laurent Bukera, WFP’s regional director for Eastern Africa and acting country director for Sudan.

“We must resume the delivery of life-saving aid in and around Zamzam safely, quickly and at scale. For that the fighting must stop, and humanitarian organisations must be granted security guarantees,” Bukera said.

On Monday, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned of “further escalation” after the RSF and its allies declared they would form a parallel government in areas under their control.

The UN says the conflict has uprooted more than 12 million people, causing the world’s largest hunger and displacement crises.