The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yusuf Tuggar, says the Nigerian soldiers who were on an aircraft that made a forced landing in Burkina Faso are still in trapped in that country.

Tuggar made this disclosure during a press briefing with his Beninese counterpart, Olushegun Bakari, on Thursday at the ECOWAS Commission in Abuja.

The Confederation of Sahel States (AES), on Monday, accused an aircraft carrying 11 Nigerian soldiers of violating Burkinabe airspace.

AES is a breakaway West African regional union made up of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger Republic.

The Mali junta leader, Assimi Goita, described the landing as an unfriendly act carried out in defiance of international law.

The AES said it authorised its member states to neutralise any aircraft violating its airspace.

The development came at the same time Nigerian troops carried out air strikes in Benin to help foil a coup.

Commenting on the situation, the Nigerian Air Force, NAF, said the C-130 aircraft was on a ferry mission to Portugal.

The leader of a failed coup in Benin Republic, Colonel Tigri Pascal, has reportedly sought refuge in neighbouring Togo.

Soldiers briefly took control of Benin’s State television station on Sunday morning and claimed they had deposed President Patrice Talon, though Benin’s armed forces, backed by Nigerian firepower and French intelligence and logistical support, thwarted the attempt.

The soldiers identified Colonel Pascal as the coup leader, while his whereabouts had previously been unknown.

However, a senior Benin government official told Reuters on Wednesday that the soldier is in Togo.

The government, however, called for Pascal’s immediate extradition.

Togo’s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A Benin government statement on Monday said coup plotters attempted to seize Talon, and came close enough for the president to witness violent clashes first-hand.

The statement added that they also managed to kidnap two senior military officials who were released on Monday morning.

A Benin Republic government’s spokesperson, Wilfried Leandre Houngbedji, said on Sunday that 14 people had been arrested in connection with the coup attempt.

Reuters

A Sudanese military aircraft crashed while attempting to land in the east of the country, killing all the crew, military officials said Wednesday, in the latest plane crash in the war-torn African nation.

The Ilyushin Il-76 cargo plane experienced technical failure while attempting to land Tuesday in the Osman Digna Air Base in the coastal city of Port Sudan, two officials said.

They said the crew were killed but didn’t disclose how many personnel were on board. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to brief the media.

Among the dead was military pilot Omran Mirghani, according to his uncle, prominent Sudanese journalist Osman Mirghani, who mourned his nephew’s death on social media.

The military didn’t comment on the crash.

Plane crashes are not uncommon in Sudan, which has a poor aviation safety record. In February, at least 46 people, including women and children, were killed when a military aircraft crashed in a densely populated area in Omdurman, the sister city of the capital, Khartoum.