Khartoum, Aug 19 (IANS): A total of 31 passengers were killed Sunday when a Sudanese civil plane carrying a ministerial delegation crashed in the country's South Kordofan state, Xinhua reported.
The dead included Sudanese Minister for Guidance and Religious Endowments Ghazi al-Sadiq, said Sudan's Civil Aviation spokesperson Abdul-Hafez Abdul-Rahim.
"The plane, Antinov, belonging to a civil aviation company, left Khartoum at 6.00 a.m. carrying a ministerial delegation of 31 people," he said.
South Kordofan State has been recently witnessing armed clashes between the Sudanese army and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA).
The spokesperson did not decline the possibility of the plane getting exposed to "some hostile act".