A group of 76 Eritreans on a repatriation flight from Libya on Friday forced their plane to change course and land in the Sudanese capital Khartoum where they sought political asylum, UN and Sudanese officials said.
The Libyan military transport plane had taken off from the town of Khufrah and was heading for the Eritrean capital Asmara when some of the angry deportees moved into the cockpit, said a Sudanese official who asked not to be named.
Libya had denied them refugee status and they wanted to seek asylum in Sudan rather than return home, an official said.
"They are afraid to go home to Eritrea, that's why they said they did it," Sudanese Interior Minister Major General Abdel Rahim Mohamed Hussein said.
Eritrean government regulations forbid young people from leaving the country. Human rights groups say hundreds of Eritrean refugees and asylum seekers have been forcibly sent home, where many have faced torture and detention without charge or trial. Eritrea denies the allegations.
The Eritrean charge d'affaires in Khartoum, quoted by the Egyptian state news agency MENA, said the deportees had no weapons but made such a disturbance on the plane that the pilot decided it was safest to land in Khartoum.
One pilot told Dubai-based Al Arabiya television however the group had been armed. "Some time after take-off they attacked us in the cockpit with knives and metal objects. They hijacked the plane and we were forced to land in Khartoum's airport," the channel showed him saying. It did not give his name.
"They asked us to take off so we did then they asked us to fly to Ethiopia. We managed to land in Khartoum again with the help of authorities at Khartoum's airport," he said. "The police were able to control the situation."
