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Islamic State’s Egypt Affiliate Claims Downing Russian Plane, Leaving All 224 People On Board Dead

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A Russian passenger plane with 224 people on board crashed in a mountainous part of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula on Saturday, leaving everyone who took the flight dead including 17 children, officials said.

The chartered plane had taken off from the south Sinai resort of Sharm el-Sheikh bound for Saint Petersburg and lost contact with air traffic control 23 minutes later before crashing in the restive peninsula.

There was no official word on the cause of the crash, but the Islamic State group’s affiliate in Egypt claimed it had downed the Russian plane.

“The soldiers of the caliphate succeeded in bringing down a Russian plane in Sinai,” said the statement circulated on social media reports

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and his French counterpart Francois Hollande said they had sent their condolences to Moscow.

The Russian emergency ministry published a list of names of the passengers, ranging in age from a 10-month-old girl to a 77-year-old woman.

All passengers on the Russian flight from Egypt died, the Russian embassy in Cairo said in a statement.

“Unfortunately, all passengers of Kogalymavia flight 9268 Sharm el-Sheikh – Saint Petersburg have died. We issue condolences to family and friends,” said a message on the embassy’s Facebook page.

The Egyptian government said in a statement that there were 214 Russian and three Ukranian passengers on board, and that 15 bodies had been recovered and transferred to a morgue so far.

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