Battles raging in Sudan have sparked a series of foreign evacuation operations to rescue their citizens or embassy staff by road, air, and sea. The conflict in Sudan has left hundreds of people dead and thousands wounded, and the situation is becoming increasingly dangerous for foreign nationals in the country.
The main airport in the capital, Khartoum, has been the site of heavy fighting and is under the control of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which is battling the army. Some evacuations are taking place from Port Sudan on the Red Sea, which is an 850-kilometre (530-mile) drive from Khartoum.
Here is an overview of what various nations were doing on Sunday in efforts to take stranded citizens to safety.
Saudi Arabia led the first reported successful evacuation, with naval operations picking up more than 150 people, including foreign diplomats and officials from Port Sudan on Saturday. Riyadh announced the “safe arrival” of 91 Saudi citizens and around 66 nationals from 12 other countries, including Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Tunisia, Pakistan, India, Bulgaria, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Canada, and Burkina Faso.
The United States military sent three Chinook helicopters to evacuate American embassy staff from Khartoum on Sunday. More than 100 US forces took part in the rescue to extract fewer than 100 people, which saw the choppers flying from Djibouti to Ethiopia to Sudan, where they stayed on the ground for less than an hour. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he ordered the evacuation of staff and their families due to the “serious and growing security risks” amid the fighting.
Several thousand US citizens, including dual nationals, are thought to remain in the country.
France launched a “rapid evacuation operation” for its citizens and diplomatic staff, with some 250 French nationals believed to be in the country. Other European citizens and those from “allied partner countries” would also be assisted, the foreign ministry said without giving further details.
The British army has evacuated UK embassy staff and their families from Sudan, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said. “UK armed forces have completed a complex and rapid evacuation of British diplomats and their families from Sudan, amid a significant escalation in violence and threats to embassy staff,” Sunak tweeted.
Ankara began operations at dawn on Sunday, taking some of its estimated 600 nationals by road from two Khartoum districts and the southern city of Wad Madani. But plans were postponed from one site in Khartoum after “explosions” near a mosque designated as the assembly area, the embassy said.
The European Union said on Friday that it was “trying to coordinate an operation to get our civilians out of the city, which is now in a high-risk situation.” Seven EU members have missions in Sudan.
The Dutch Foreign Ministry said it was “participating in an international evacuation operation”, with Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra saying teams would “do their utmost to collect Dutch people as quickly and safely as possible”.
Berlin aborted an evacuation attempt for its citizens from Sudan on Wednesday, according to German weekly Der Spiegel. Three military transport planes, which would have carried around 150 German citizens, headed for the country but were made to turn back, it said.
Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Dendias said Sunday that Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis had ordered to relocate Air Force aircraft and troops to Egypt to participate in a potential operation to rescue Greek and Cypriot citizens from Sudan.
Jordanian foreign ministry spokesman Sinan Majali said on Saturday that Amman had begun the evacuation of some 300 Jordanian citizens, adding there was “continuous cooperation with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia for this purpose”. The Jordanian embassy in Khartoum urged its citizens to immediately contact them to facilitate their evacuation.
Meanwhile, the UAE has also been working on evacuating its citizens and embassy staff from Sudan. On Sunday, the UAE announced that it had successfully evacuated its embassy staff and their families, along with other Emirati nationals, from the country. The operation was carried out in coordination with Saudi Arabia and the US, and involved the use of military aircraft.
Lebanon has also been involved in evacuation efforts, with the Lebanese Foreign Ministry announcing on Sunday that it had successfully evacuated 60 of its citizens from Khartoum by road. The ministry added that the citizens were now safe, and that they would be evacuated by sea as soon as possible.
The Libyan embassy in Khartoum has also been involved in evacuation efforts. On Friday, the embassy announced that it had evacuated 83 Libyan nationals from the country, taking them to Port Sudan. The embassy added that it was continuing to work on evacuating other Libyan citizens who were still in Sudan.
Other countries that have been involved in evacuation efforts include China, Japan, South Korea, and Indonesia. South Korea and Japan have deployed forces to nearby countries in preparation for possible evacuations, while China has been coordinating with the Sudanese army to evacuate its embassy staff and citizens.
Indonesia, meanwhile, has said that 43 of its citizens are currently sheltering inside the embassy compound in Khartoum. The Indonesian embassy has urged its citizens to remain calm and stay inside the compound until evacuation arrangements can be made.
The ongoing violence in Sudan has been a cause of concern for many countries, with the UN calling for an immediate end to the fighting. The UN has also urged all parties involved to allow for the safe and unhindered evacuation of foreign nationals and embassy staff. The situation in Sudan remains tense, and it is unclear when the violence will subside.
Image Credit: Saudi defence ministry
