Russian sources say an Ilyushin Il-76 transport aircraft may have been shot down while flying over vast Darfur, western Sudan, where the war that broke out on April 15, 2023 is still raging.

The embassy of the Russian Federation in Khartoum said it is trying, in coordination with the Sudanese authorities, to ascertain whether the four-engine aircraft was indeed shot down and what is the fate of the crew, the Russian state news agency TASS reported.

Aircraft of the type generally have a crew of five. The Mash Telegram channel reported that there were at least two Russians among the ferry’s crew members.

The Russian embassy noted that Ilyushin may have been shot down by Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries, who have been fighting with the Sudanese army for over a year and a half.

The information about the takedown was initially circulated through social networking sites, by members of DTY. The German Agency says it was unable to independently verify it.

It is not clear what the plane’s route was, what its cargo was, or how many people were on board.

Sudan, Africa’s third largest country, has turned since mid-April last year into a theater of merciless war with tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dead, between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the paramilitaries under General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto leader of the African state.

Some 11.3 million people have been forced to flee their homes, of which nearly 3 million have fled the country, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), which is calling it a humanitarian “catastrophe”.

Some 26 million Sudanese are facing extreme food insecurity and famine has been declared in Darfur’s vast Zamzam IDP camp.