Abdul-Rahman Abubakar
27 October 2009
Khartoum — Senate President David Mark and his delegation were forced yesterday to abort a mission to the troubled western Sudanese region of Darfur when Sudanese authorities refused to grant permission to the aircraft conveying them to land at the Khartoum International Airport. The Sudanese ambassador in Nigeria however attributed the affair to a communication problem.
Mark and his delegation, comprising members of the Senate Committees on Defence and Foreign Affairs as well as other government officials, were scheduled to visit Nigerian soldiers serving under the United Nations Mission in Darfur (UNAMID).
But Sudanese authorities refused to give landing permission, saying that the Khartoum International Airport was to be closed for six hours, from 9 am to 3 pm yesterday, to enable maintenance work, while Mark was expected to land at the airport at about 12: 30 pm local time.
Efforts by the Nigerian Ambassador in Sudan, Salihu Ahmed-Sambo to get permission for the landing yielded no fruit as the aircraft conveying the Senate President and his delegation was forced to make a u-turn after making an emergency landing at the N'djamena Airport in Chad Republic.
After waiting for hours without securing approval to land in Sudan, the Senate President decided to cancel the trip to Darfur and ordered the aircraft to return to Abuja.
Ambassador Ahmed-Sambo told Daily Trust yesterday that "We never envisaged such situation because we are all set and ready to receive the high delegation from our country but all of a sudden, they said the airport was closed at the time the Senate President's aircraft was scheduled to land."
He said the Sudanese government did not give prior notice of the closure because "even as at yesterday, we did not know that the airport will be closed today. We are going to make a formal protest to the government because we just issued visas to their own delegation that is going to attend the Peace and Security Conference in Abuja."
The Ambassador however said the Embassy will undertake further investigations to ascertain what led to the 'disappointment' before taking further steps. "Relationship between the two countries has always been excellent and that is why we did not expect such situation. But we are going to find out what really happened before taking another step," he said.
The Sudanese Ambassador in Nigeria Mr. Awad Mursi Taha told Daily Trust last night that his mission had been arranging Mark's visit to Sudan for the last two weeks. He said all arrangements had been made for Mark to meet his Sudanese opposite number, the President of the Council of State as well as the Speaker of the Sudanese Parliament. He said a dinner party was also planned in the Senate President's honour and that arrangements had also been made for his trip to Nyala, capital of South Darfur Region, to meet Nigerian soldiers serving there.
Ambassador Taha said Mark's plane never entered Sudanese airspace yesterday, and that the delegation was told while it was in Chad that Khartoum Airport was closed down at certain times of the day for repairs. Taha also denied that the treatment had anything to do with the activities of Nigerian human rights groups that were calling for Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir's arrest if he sets foot in Nigeria. He said the activities of those rebel Darfuri groups in Nigeria is well known to the Embassy.
However, our reporter learnt at the point of entry into Sudan that the relationship between the countries may have become strained as it took hours before Customs officials at the Khartoum Airport allowed the first contingent from Nigeria that included journalists from entering their country. This came after several frantic calls by Embassy officials to some top officials in that country.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2009 Daily Trust. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
