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| Edited By: DNA Web Team |Source: DNA webdesk |Updated: Apr 11, 2018, 06:30 PM IST
In a tragic accident, an Algerian military plane on Wednesday crashed shortly after taking off from the Boufarik base in Algeria. The plane was a Ilyushin Il-78 used for military purpose. Boufarik base is located near capital Algiers.
The death toll has risen to 257, Reuters reported, citing Algerian state TV. It is not yet clear how many people were on board the plane when it crashed into a field outside the capital.
Television footage showed crowds gathering around the smoking and flaming wreckage near Boufarik airport southwest of Algiers.
A line of white body bags could be seen on the ground next to what media said was a Russian Ilyushin transport plane.
Algeria's defence ministry said the plane was heading for Tindouf, an area on Algeria’s border with Western Sahara, but crashed on the airport’s perimeter, Algeria’s defence ministry said.
Tindouf is home to thousands of refugees from the Western Sahara standoff, many of them Polisario supporters.
UN attempts to broker a settlement have failed for years in the vast desert area, which has contested since 1975 when Spanish colonial powers left. Morocco claimed the territory while Polisario established its self-declared Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic there.
In February 2014, an Algerian Air Force Lockheed C-130 Hercules crashed in a mountainous area in eastern Algeria killing 77 passengers and leaving one survivor.
