Discussions of a ceasefire in Sudan raised hopes on Saturday that foreign nationals stranded in the country amid heavy fighting between rival military groups could soon be evacuated.
Sudan’s de facto president and commander-in-chief of the army, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, said he has agreed to facilitate the evacuation of foreign civilians and diplomats from the embattled country.
A Sudanese army spokesman said in a statement on Saturday that the United States, Britain, France, and China would begin evacuating from the capital Khartoum “in the coming hours” using military transport aircraft.
Al-Burhan has pledged to “facilitate and guarantee” the evacuations and to provide the countries with “the necessary support to ensure this,” the army spokesman said.
The rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has been openly fighting the Sudanese army for the past week, also said in a statement it was “ready for a complete ceasefire” to allow evacuations.
However, apparent ceasefire agreements have been repeatedly violated during the conflict.
As clashes continue, Sudanese citizens are also trying to flee the fighting.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), up to 20,000 people have already fled to neighbouring Chad in the past few days.
Thousands more people have been displaced from heavily contested areas within the country.
Meanwhile, a Saudi Arabian delegation has already been evacuated from the eastern city of Port Sudan on the Red Sea, the army spokesman said, adding that a Jordanian delegation was also to be flown out of Port Sudan, some 850 kilometres from the Sudanese capital, later on Saturday.
According to the Saudi television station al-Arabiya, five Saudi ships also brought 158 people from Sudan to the Red Sea city of Jeddah.
Among them were diplomats and citizens from Saudi Arabia, Bulgaria, Canada, Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, India, Pakistan, Burkina Faso, and the Philippines, according to the Saudi Foreign Ministry.
In Sudan, the army is in control of all airports except those in Khartoum and the town of Njala in the South Dafur region, al-Burhan told Al-Arabiya.
The country’s de facto president said he remained in control of the army and would only let his rival and former deputy Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, the leader of the RSF, get away “in a coffin.”
Fighting broke out in Sudan about a week ago between the north-eastern African country’s two most powerful generals and their respective military units.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), at least 413 people have been killed and more than 3,500 have been injured since the fighting began.
The airport in the capital Khartoum has been at the centre of the clashes and was therefore inaccessible.
Diplomats have been trying for days to secure a resilient ceasefire for the evacuation of foreign citizens.
After a brief ceasefire on Friday due to the Muslim Eid al-Fitr celebrations that mark the end of Ramadan, fighting continued overnight.
On Saturday morning, Khartoum was bombed again, a reporter at the scene told dpa.
Shots rang out in the city, and eyewitnesses reported hearing explosions in the capital on Twitter.
The ceasefire largely held during the night, the reporter said. There were only “sporadic clashes.”
The US embassy in Khartoum said on Saturday that the ongoing fighting and closure of the airport in the capital made it currently impossible to evacuate US citizens.
The embassy continues to closely monitor the situation in Khartoum and surrounding areas, it said in a statement.
Apart from the fighting between the rival forces, there are currently reports of attacks, home invasions and looting.
Spain, meanwhile, sent four aircraft to the east African country of Djibouti to facilitate evacuations of its nationals and other foreign citizens from Sudan, according to media reports.
Two more planes are still to follow on Saturday, Spanish Defence Minister Margarita Robles was quoted as saying by the Europa Press news agency. Djibouti is located some 1,200 kilometres south-east of Khartoum.
Some of the Spanish cargo planes were carrying special forces and armoured vehicles to safely evacuate civilians if necessary, the minister said.
As Khartoum airport is currently closed, “you have to get overland to a nearby airfield, but we have very well-prepared special forces,” Robles was quoted as saying.
An evacuation will only be possible when there is an “effective and genuine ceasefire,” Robles added.
According to the German Defence Ministry, the country’s armed forces, or Bundeswehr, are preparing for a new attempt to evacuate German citizens.
On Wednesday, an attempt at a diplomatic evacuation with air force planes had been aborted.
The Swedish government plans to ask parliament to authorize on Sunday the deployment of an armed unit to Sudan to support an evacuation mission, Foreign Minister Tobias Billström and Defense Minister Pål Jonson said on Saturday evening.
US Evacuates citizens
Meanwhile according to BBC reports, in a new development the US military has evacuated American diplomats and their families from Khartoum, President Joe Biden has said.
“Today, on my orders, the United States military conducted an operation to extract US government personnel from Khartoum,” he said in a statement.
A US official said fewer than 100 people were evacuated early on Sunday, when three Chinook helicopters landed near the US embassy to collect them.
Fierce violence erupted last week in Khartoum between two opposing armies.
In a call with reporters after the mission, Lt Gen Douglas Sims said more than 100 US troops from the Navy Seals and Army Special Forces flew from Djibouti to Ethiopia and then into Sudan, and were on the ground for less than an hour.
Mr Biden thanked Djibouti, Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia, saying they had been “critical to the success of our operation”, and he warmly praised the US embassy staff and military.
The US embassy in Khartoum is now closed.
A tweet on its official feed says the US government cannot provide consular services for its citizens in Sudan, nor is it safe enough for the government to evacuate private US citizens.
It was the second evacuation of foreign citizens since violence erupted in Sudan’s capital last week.
On Saturday, more than 150 citizens, diplomats and international officials were evacuated by sea to the Saudi Arabian port of Jeddah. They were mostly citizens of Gulf countries, as well as Egypt, Pakistan and Canada.
Reuters news agency quotes US officials as saying a few diplomats from other countries were also evacuated in the US operation, and the US aircraft did not come under fire during it.
Khartoum airport has been repeatedly targeted by shelling and gunfire, making evacuation flights from there impossible.
Mr Biden’s statement said: “I am receiving regular reports from my team on their ongoing work to assist Americans in Sudan, to the extent possible.”
He condemned the fighting, saying the rival armies “must implement an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, allow unhindered humanitarian access, and respect the will of the people of Sudan”.
The UK says it is considering ways to evacuate its staff. A hotline has been set up for those who need urgent help, and UK citizens in Sudan are being urged to tell the Foreign Office where they are.
Any UK evacuation is expected to be very limited and focus on diplomatic staff – not comparable to the mass evacuation from Afghanistan in 2021.
Meanwhile the Canadian government has told its citizens in Sudan to “shelter in a safe place”, keep their phones charged, doors and windows locked and “consider leaving the country if there’s a safe means to do so”.
