Tripoli - Two men who hijacked a Sudanese plane in Darfur and forced it to fly to Libya released all 87 passengers on Wednesday but kept six of the crew hostage, the Libyan news agency Jana reported. A Libyan civil aviation official said negotiations were still under way with the air pirates to turn themselves in and free their remaining hostages.
The hijackers, members of a splinter group of the Sudanese Liberation Army (SLA), are demanding the Boeing 737 be refueled and allowed to leave for Paris.
The plane belonging to the private Sudanese airline Sun Express was seized Tuesday on a flight from the southern Darfur town of Nyala to the Sudanese capital Khartoum when it was diverted to al-Qafra airport in the Libyan desert.
The hijackers released the passengers on Wednesday after several of them fainted from the head and a lack of oxygen in the aircraft. Egyptians, Ethiopians, and Ugandans were among those on board.
The hijackers said they were members of an SLA splinter group led by Abdelwahid Nur, who lives in French exile. Nur told the Arabic news channel al-Jazeera they did not belong to his group.
Rebel groups have been battling Arab militias and Sudanese government troops in Darfur since 2003. Some 200,00 people have died in the conflict.
Libyan leader Moamer Gaddafi has made several invitations to the warring parties to hold peace talks in Libya.
