The destruction of a cargo Boeing 737 registered 5Y-CKD while operating into Nyala, Sudan in May 2025 exposed a hard lesson about the limits of visual markings that claim neutrality or humanitarian purpose. Official and press accounts indicate the aircraft, operated by a small Kenyan-registered carrier often reported as IBM Airlines, was destroyed at Nyala Airport amid suspicions it was carrying military supplies for the Rapid Support Forces. The event left dozens dead and prompted immediate accusations and counteraccusations across the region.
Facts on the ground matter for legal and regulatory follow up. Open-source reporting and aviation-safety records show the airframe had a contested operational history, including periods when its registration was obscured and short term landing permissions were issued by local authorities. Some contemporaneous press accounts reported that the aircraft had been repainted and that its registration was not visible when detained or operating in the region. Those operational details are not peripheral. They affect how a state party assesses whether an aircraft is genuinely civilian or serving military ends.
International humanitarian law gives special protection to certain clearly identified noncombatant categories, most notably medical aircraft and personnel marked with the recognized emblems. The Geneva Conventions and their commentaries make plain that protection for medical aircraft depends on exclusive employment for medical purposes and on conspicuous and correct marking with the Red Cross, Red Crescent or Red Crystal together with national colours. The law also strictly forbids the unauthorized use of protective emblems. In short, visual markings can confer protection, but only when they are truthful and used in accordance with the law.
That legal baseline has a direct operational corollary. A phrase or paint job purporting to show “neutral cargo” or “humanitarian” does not convert otherwise unlawful military supply into protected humanitarian relief. Misuse of protective symbols, whether deliberate or through regulatory gaps, can itself be a war crime or at minimum a grave breach of the protections the law affords to truly neutral relief operations. States facing flights into contested airspace are entitled to assess whether an aircraft is carrying military materiel, whether the operator is effectively acting as a proxy for a belligerent, and whether markings are being used to obfuscate rather than to protect.
From a civil aviation regulatory perspective, package and aircraft markings also have safety and liability consequences well outside the law of armed conflict. International and national technical rules require accurate, durable and legible shipper and dangerous goods markings, and they place primary responsibility on the consignor to declare the nature of cargo. Carriers and operators have separate duties to verify documentation and to refuse transportation where hazardous cargo rules or sanctions compliance is not met. When an aircraft operates into or over a conflict zone with insufficient transparency on manifest content or with concealed registration, regulators and operators have failed at a basic gatekeeping function.
The IBM Airlines 5Y-CKD episode highlights several accountability gaps that need to be closed.
1) Clarity over protection. Legal protection from attack under IHL is conditional. States and military commanders require credible assurances that an aircraft is exclusively engaged in medical or neutral humanitarian activity before granting protection. Visual claims of neutrality must be backed by verifiable documentation, notice and bilateral or multilateral agreement when flights cross contested airspace.
2) Transparency of cargo and manifests. Accurate, timely and verifiable manifests are indispensable. When consignments include potentially dual use or clearly military materiel, consignors, freight forwarders and the operator must disclose that fact to origin, transit and destination authorities. Regulators should mandate pre-flight manifest verification for flights into conflict-prone regions and empower refusal or interdiction where documentation is lacking.
3) Vetting of ad hoc and small operators. The event involved an ad hoc operator with limited public footprint. States and regional regulators must improve risk-based vetting of carriers that operate into conflict zones, including cross-checks of ownership, insurance, airworthiness and prior regulatory actions. A carrier that repeatedly operates outside normal commercial norms should face restrictions on access to airspace and airport slots in sensitive regions.
4) Prohibition on misuse of protective signs. The Geneva framework prohibits unauthorized use of distinctive emblems and designations reserved for medical and humanitarian purposes. National laws and aviation rules should criminalize or sanction misuse of those markings on aircraft and cargo, and enforcement should include criminal and administrative channels so there is meaningful deterrence.
5) International coordination and rapid inquiry mechanisms. Where an aircraft is destroyed or interdicted amid dispute, the international community needs fast, independent fact gathering to establish whether the aircraft was a legitimate military target, a civilian flight carrying lawful cargo, or a civilian aircraft used to transport prohibited supplies. ICAO, ICRC and regional bodies should develop joint protocols for immediate access to manifests, communications logs and maintenance records in such incidents. This will reduce the fog that fuels retaliatory narratives and diplomatic escalation.
There are two final practical realities regulators and operators must face. First, the incentive to hide registrations or to mislabel cargo is powerful where sanctions, arms embargoes or transport bans exist. Tackling that incentive requires coordinated enforcement that hits the supply chain at multiple points: shippers, freight forwarders, insurance underwriters and intermediary states that provide overflight or refuelling. Second, the protection afforded by clear markings cannot be privatized. It rests on state recognition and military discipline. If belligerent forces perceive that markings are being gamed, they will treat suspicious aircraft as potential military targets. That is not a waiver of states duties under IHL, but it is a practical consequence operators must accept.
The Nyala incident should be a wake up call. Civilian operators, shippers and regulators must stop treating visual markings as cosmetic or discretionary. Where lives are at stake in active conflict zones, truthful identification, manifest transparency and enforceable prohibitions on sham neutrality are not optional. States should use existing legal tools and aviation standards to close the gaps that let cargo become a battlefield commodity disguised under the veneer of neutrality. The law protects the wounded, the sick and legitimate humanitarian action. It does not protect camouflage.