Türkiye’s evacuation plane was shot as it landed at Wadi Saeedna airbase in the capital of Khartoum, damaging the fuel supply, on Friday.
A report says that the plane managed to land safely and Türkiye’s Defense Ministry has confirmed there were no injuries.
“Light weapons were fired on our C-130 evacuation plane… Our plane landed safely. Although there are no injuries to our personnel, necessary repairs are being carried out on our aircraft,” a Turkish Defence Ministry statement said.
The Sudanese army accused the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of shooting at the Turkish military jet.
The RSF denied firing at the plane and said the army was ‘spreading lies.
“Our forces have remained strictly committed to the humanitarian truce that we agreed upon since midnight, and it is not true that we targeted any aircraft in the sky of Wadi Seidna in Omdurman,” the RSF said in a statement.
“How can it be reasonable for our forces to attack a Turkish evacuation plane while it was us who protected the mission in recent days and helped evacuations in all districts of the capital?” it said.
Thousands of desperate civilians are racing to board the last evacuation planes out of the capital before the fragile 72-hour ceasefire ends.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has called on both sides to end the conflict and return to negotiations. However, despite the extension of a fragile truce between the two top generals, explosions and gunfire continue in the Sudanese capital.
As a result, thousands of Sudanese are fleeing to safer areas and foreign nations are evacuating thousands of their citizens by land, air and sea.