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Israeli Plane Carrying Medical Aid Lands in Sudan

The scene after two planes collided is seen at Khartoum Airport, Sudan October 3, 2018 in this picture obtained from social media. GAMIL BANNA/via REUTERS
The scene after two planes collided is seen at Khartoum Airport, Sudan October 3, 2018 in this picture obtained from social media. GAMIL BANNA/via REUTERS
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Israeli Plane Carrying Medical Aid Lands in Sudan

The scene after two planes collided is seen at Khartoum Airport, Sudan October 3, 2018 in this picture obtained from social media. GAMIL BANNA/via REUTERS
The scene after two planes collided is seen at Khartoum Airport, Sudan October 3, 2018 in this picture obtained from social media. GAMIL BANNA/via REUTERS

A private Israeli jet landed at Khartoum airport on Tuesday and returned to Tel Aviv the same day, Israeli sources confirmed despite an official denial from Sudan.

The Hebrew newspaper Yedioth Aharonoth said that the private plane with the registration number N84UP, was previously used to transfer money from Doha to Tel Aviv. The sums were then transported by armored vehicle to the Gaza Strip and received by a Hamas representative.

Earlier, Israeli Broadcasting Corporation correspondent Shimon Aran reported that an Israeli private plane landed at Khartoum International Airport on Tuesday morning.

Later, Ynet website detailed the plane’s itinerary saying it set out from Tel Aviv towards Eilat airport at 9 am Tuesday, then flew over the Gulf of Aqaba, the Red Sea, and passed the Egyptian airspace. The jet entered Sudan airspace and landed at Khartoum airport, two hours after takeoff.

Sources in Tel Aviv said that the Israeli plane carried medicine and medical equipment to help the country confront the coronavirus outbreak.

They indicated that officials decided to send the plane to help treat the advisor to Sudan's leader Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, Najwa Gadaheldam, who contracted the virus and died early Wednesday from complications stemming from the coronavirus.

Gadaheldam was instrumental in fostering relations between Tel Aviv and Khartoum after she sponsored the meeting between Burhan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Kampala earlier this year.

Yedioth Aharonoth related the reports about the plane with Netanyahu’s statement during a cabinet meeting that he called officials, including Burhan and Gadaheldam, to congratulate them on Eid al-Fitr.

Netanyahu stated that Sudan is witnessing a shift in its relations with Israel, recalling his February 3 meeting with Burhan at the invitation of Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni.

Khartoum International Airport spokesman Mohamed Mahdi Abdoun issued a statement denying claims about the arrival of the Israeli plane.

Abdoun asserted that no Israeli jet landed at the airport and there are no scheduled flights at the facility, stating that Sudan’s airspace has been closed to all commercial flights since the spread of the coronavirus.

Sudanese Armed Forces Spokesman Brigadier General Amer Muhammad al-Hassan also denied that an Israeli plane had landed at Khartoum airport, asserting in a Facebook post that a plane arrived from Turkey carrying medical aid.

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Sudan War Destroys World's Only Research Center on Skin Disease Mycetoma

The Mycetoma Research Center in the southern Khartoum district of Soba, on August 5, 2013. ASHRAF SHAZLY / AFP/File
The Mycetoma Research Center in the southern Khartoum district of Soba, on August 5, 2013. ASHRAF SHAZLY / AFP/File
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Sudan War Destroys World's Only Research Center on Skin Disease Mycetoma

The Mycetoma Research Center in the southern Khartoum district of Soba, on August 5, 2013. ASHRAF SHAZLY / AFP/File
The Mycetoma Research Center in the southern Khartoum district of Soba, on August 5, 2013. ASHRAF SHAZLY / AFP/File

The world's only research center on mycetoma, a neglected tropical disease common among farmers, has been destroyed in Sudan's two-year war, its director and another expert say.

Mycetoma is caused by bacteria or fungus and usually enters the body through cuts. It is a progressively destructive infectious disease of the body tissue, affecting skin, muscle and even bone.

It is often characterized by swollen feet, but can also cause barnacle-like growths and club-like hands, AFP said.

"The center and all its infrastructure were destroyed during the war in Sudan," Ahmed Fahal, director of the Mycetoma Research Centre (MRC), told AFP.

"We lost the entire contents of our biological banks, where there was data from more than 40 years," said Fahal, whose center had treated thousands of patients from Sudan and other countries.

"It's difficult to bear."

Since April 15, 2023, Sudan's army has been at war with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces throughout the northeast African country.

The MRC is located in the Khartoum area, which the army last month reclaimed from the RSF during a war that has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted more than 12 million.

Sudan's health care system has been left at the "breaking point", according to the World Health Organization.

Among the conflict's casualties is now the MRC, established in 1991 under the auspices of the University of Khartoum. It was a rare story of medical success in impoverished Sudan.

A video provided by the global Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) shows collapsed ceilings, shelves overturned, fridges open and documents scattered about.

AFP was not able to independently verify the MRC's current condition.

The center had grown to include 50 researchers and treat 12,000 patients each year, Fahal said.

Mycetoma is listed as a neglected tropical disease by the WHO.

The organisms that cause mycetoma also occur in Sudan's neighbors, including Chad and Ethiopia, as well as in other tropical and sub-tropical areas, among them Mexico and Thailand, WHO says.

For herders, farmers and other workers depending on manual labor to survive, crippling mycetoma infections can be a life sentence.

Drawing on the MRC's expertise, in 2019 the WHO and Sudan's government convened the First International Training Workshop on Mycetoma, in Khartoum.

"Today, Sudan, which was at the forefront of awareness of mycetomas, has gone 100 percent backwards," said Dr. Borna Nyaoke-Anoke, DNDi's head of mycetoma.