President mourns dead officials in Sudanese air crash

Sudan's President, Omar al-Bashir Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir on Sunday mourned the 32 Sudanese officials who were killed as their plane crashed into Hajar al-Nar Mountain in the city of Taludi. Bashir expressed his condolences to the Sudanese people "on the martyrdom of the federal Minister of Guidance and Endowments, Engineer Ghazi Al-Saddiq, and others in crash of the plane carrying them to Taludi town, South Kordofan State, when they were en route to congratulate the town's citizens on Eid al-Fitr."
Other major Sudanese officials among the 32 victims included Mahjoub Abdelrahim Tutu, the state minister at the ministry of youth and sports, Eissa Daifalla, the state minister at the ministry of tourism, Ali al-Jailani, minister of education of Khartoum state, and Mekki Ali Balayel, head of the Nationalist Justice Party.
South Kordofan state's information minister, Rajab al-Basha, said that the operation of collecting the victims' dead bodies is still ongoing, while an official investigation will be opened soon into the crash.
Earlier on Sunday, the Sudanese Aviation Authority's spokesperson Abdelhafiz Abdelrahim said that the plane crashed into Hajar al-Nar Mountain because due to bad weather, killing the entire delegation.
Abdelrahim said the Antonov plane was landing at Taludi at about 8am (0500 GMT) when something suddenly went wrong.
"Before landing, communication with the pilot was normal and the runway clear. Then an explosion was heard and the plane was destroyed," he said.
Source within the Sudanese presidency institution told Arabstoday that it is sure that the plane was not attacked.
The federal interior minister, Ibrahim Hamed said that the crash took place due to "bad and cloudy weather". The official broadcast cancelled its scheduled programmes to follow up the details of the incident, a well as the reactions over it.
Accidents are common among Sudan's ageing fleet of aircraft, and Europe bans all Sudanese airlines for safety reasons.
At least 30 people died when a Sudan Airways jet burst into flames on landing in Khartoum in 2008.
Several small airline companies in Sudan use pilots from the former Soviet Union. It was not immediately clear which firm operated Sunday's ill-fated plane. The Sudanese official news agency SUNA did not give the names or nationalities of the six crew personnel who were reported dead.
Ten victims belonged to the security forces, including three generals: a deputy commander of the People's Defence Forces, a police general and a navy general.
A correspondent for state television, three others identified as "media staff" were killed too, according to SUNA.
Sudan's state-run TV announced that one of its presenters, Abdelhay al-Rabei, was among the victims, while the state's authorities are yet to issue a full list of the victims.
Although there have been no reports of major fighting around Taludi in recent weeks, the city has been a key battleground in the war which began in June 2011 between the government and ethnic rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N).
Prominent Sudanese officials killed in plane crashes include Zobeir Mohammed Saleh, first deputy to the President, whose plane was destroyed in 1998 over Upper Nile state and former defence minister and member of the Revolution Command Council Ibrahim Shamseddine, whose plane crashed in 2001. However,  the most controversial incident was that of the founder of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) John Garang, whose helicopter crashed in 2005 over South Sudan, as he was on his way back from what was apparently "a secret visit" to Uganda.  
The slain leader of the Nationalist Justice Party Mekki Ali Balayel was earlier interviewed by Arabstoday. His comments included accusations that the SPLM was behind the assassination attempts on Sudanese officials including the former speaker of South Kordofan's parliament, Ibrahim Balandiya. He added that he himself was also targeted by the SPLM.
Balayel also criticised the peace agreement of 2005 between the Sudanese government and the SPLM, which he said has made the SPLM a partner in authority in South Kordofan and ignored all other parties.