Evacuations of foreign nationals from Sudan begin amid fighting

First modification: 04/23/2023 – 15:25

Both the Sudanese armed forces and the FAR paramilitaries promised “security guarantees” to allow this operation since yesterday. However, in the early hours of Saturday, foreign governments assured that it was not possible to proceed, especially since there was no clarity about what group had control of each airport. This panorama was changing yesterday afternoon.

Paris began this Sunday, April 23, a “rapid evacuation operation” of its nationals and diplomatic personnel, as announced by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Approximately 250 French people living in Sudan could be cared for, as well as citizens of Europe and “associated allied countries”, according to a diplomatic source consulted by AFP.

Saudi Arabia declared on Saturday that it had successfully evacuated 157 people, including 91 Saudi nationals.

For its part, the US military carried out an air operation to extract 70 officials from its embassy in the capital Khartoum.

“Today, at my request, the United States military has conducted an operation to remove American government personnel from Khartoum,” President Biden said in a statement late on Saturday.

But Washington says the terrain is still too dangerous to carry out a mass evacuation of the hundreds of citizens present in the country.

“We do not plan to coordinate a government evacuation of the remaining citizens at this time,” said a senior State Department official, John Bass.

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Along the same lines, other countries announced their intention to expel their nationals. Turkey will “guarantee the return to the country” of some 600 Turks present in Sudan and some people from other countries should be included in this evacuation.

However, an operation scheduled for 6 a.m. Sunday was postponed “until further notice” due to an explosion near the meeting place, the Turkish embassy in Khartoum said.

Italy is preparing to repatriate 140 citizens of the country, many of whom have taken refuge in the embassy. Rome sent military planes to Djibouti for the operation.

Both Greece and the Netherlands have also sent air forces to countries in the region in preparation for rescue missions. “We stand in deep solidarity with the Dutch in Sudan and will do our best to evacuate people where and when possible,” said Dutch Defense Minister Kajsa Ollongren.

fighting continues

The escalating power struggle between the Sudanese army, led by General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and the powerful Rapid Support Forces (FAR) paramilitary group, led by General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, has been going on for nine days in the country.

In 2021, these two rival generals had overthrown the civil leaders of the country and seized power with a coup, the problem has arisen later with the idea of ​​the transition to democracy and the merger of these two sides for that purpose. The differences between the two heads have the situation out of control at the moment in Sudan and paralyzed any idea of ​​government unity.

Despite the truce decided to coincide with the three Muslim holidays of Eid al-Fitr, fighting continued in the country. In fact, recently, shootings and explosions intensified in Omdurman, a city located on the other side of the Nile, facing Khartoum.

“This tragic violence in Sudan has already claimed hundreds of innocent civilian lives. It makes no sense and it must end,” President Joe Biden declared Saturday.

The conflict has also left millions of Sudanese homeless, without enough electricity, food or water. Half the population has fled the capital, said Atiya Abdalla Atiya, secretary of the Doctors’ Union.

To complete, this Sunday, the country experienced a “near total collapse” of the Internet connection and telephone lines throughout the country, as announced by NetBlocks, an Internet monitoring service.

With AFP and AP