Sudanese plane hijackers surrender in Libya

TRIPOLI (Reuters) - The hijackers of a Sudanese airliner surrendered to authorities in Libya on Wednesday after releasing all the passengers and crew, Libya's aviation authority said.

The airliner, with 95 people on board, was seized on Tuesday after leaving Sudan's war-torn Darfur region for Khartoum. It was forced to land at the remote Sahara desert oasis of Kufrah in southeastern Libya.

The identity of the two hijackers and their motive for seizing the Boeing 737/200 was unclear.

The hijackers first released the passengers and two crew members, but kept six crew hostage during further negotiations before surrendering.

"The two hijackers were transported to one of the halls at Kufrah airport after giving themselves up," Libyan state news agency Jana quoted aviation authority head Mohamed Shlibek as saying.

Released passengers who flew back to Khartoum late on Wednesday said that 10 minutes into the flight the two hijackers had stood up, brandishing handguns.

One went to the cockpit, said 25-year-old-student Ishaq Abdallah Yahiya, while the other ordered passengers to stay in their seats. "He said: 'If anybody moves we'll blow up the plane and we'll all become nothing'."

ASYLUM

The hijackers said they were hoping to claim asylum in France, and invited the passengers to join them as refugees in Paris.

Another passenger, Mohamed al-Tijani Tayeb, told Reuters one of the men had claimed they were members of a faction of the Darfur rebel Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM), led by Abdel Wahed Mohammed al-Nur.

"He told me they had hijacked the aircraft as a reaction to the raids on Kalma camp", said Tayeb, referring to clashes this week between government forces and Darfuris in a camp for people displaced by five years of conflict in South Darfur.

A spokesman for al-Nur had earlier fiercely denied claims that the hijackers were linked to his SLM faction.

Tayeb said he was a member of Darfur's transitional regional authority and a member of another SLM faction that signed a peace deal with Khartoum in 2006. Six other members of his faction were also on the flight.

There were emotional scenes as the passengers flew back in to Khartoum late on Wednesday to be greeted by crowds of ululating friends and relatives.

Other passengers described how they had to wait for hours on the plane as it sat on the Libyan runway as food and water ran out and the air conditioning broke down. "It was like a furnace," said one.

Darfur has been riven by conflict since a rebellion against Khartoum's rule broke out more than five years ago. International experts say more than 2.5 million Darfuris have been driven from their homes and 200,000 people killed. Sudan puts the death toll at about 10,000.

The insurgents are split into several factions.

The plane had taken off from the South Darfur capital Nyala, bound for Khartoum. Libya granted permission for it to land after the pilot said it was running out of fuel, Libya's state news agency said.

All the passengers were Sudanese except two Egyptian police officers, two Ethiopians and one Ugandan.

Libyan TV said the authorities gave medical treatment to some of the freed passengers who had fainted in the plane after its air conditioning stopped working.

(Additional reporting by Jonathan Wright, Andrew Heavens and Khaled Abdelaziz; writing by Lamine Ghanmi; editing by Andrew Roche)