Closing Summary
It’s slightly past midnight in Khartoum. Here’s a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
Six UK flights have evacuated 536 people from war-torn Sudan, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said. UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has said the UK “cannot guarantee” how many further evacuation flights will depart once the 72-hour ceasefire in Sudan expires on Thursday night.
A sixth RAF transport plane carrying evacuees is about to land in Cyprus, well short of the total number originally expected by this time but indicative of the pick up in pace of the rescue mission. It is not known how many British nationals who are believed to include women and children are on the A400M plane but, as has been the case thus far, they will be processed in Larnaca before embarking on onwards journeys.
On Wednesday, Nigeria started evacuating around 3,500 of its nationals, mostly students. “The evacuation of our citizens has commenced. Seven buses have left Khartoum and they are heading to Egypt,” Manzo Ezekiel, spokesman for Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) told AFP.
A second American has died in Sudan, the White House said on Wednesday, and U.S. authorities are helping a small number of citizens seeking to leave the country during a ceasefire that has curbed fighting. While sporadic violence continues, the ceasefire announced by the United States on Monday appears to be holding, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.
Omar al-Bashir is in custody in a military hospital amid reports of RSF prison breaks, with Reuters reporting that Sudan’s army said the ousted former president was being held in a military hospital under police custody. It claimed that the formerly jailed Bashir and about 30 others were moved to the hospital on the recommendation of medical staff in Kober prison before fighting broke out in the country.
The British Red Cross has warned that the “desperate” humanitarian need in Sudan risks becoming “catastrophic”. Sam Turner, head of east and southern African region, said: “We expect the humanitarian need will only grow in the coming days and weeks, including in neighbouring countries as people flee their homes to seek safety.”
The AFP newswire reports that Ahmed Harun, a leading figure of the regime of deposed dictator Omar al-Bashir, has said he has escaped prison. It reports: “Harun, who led the regime’s infamous counter-insurgency campaign in the western Darfur region in the mid-2000s and is wanted for war crimes by the international criminal court, said he had broken out of the capital’s Kober prison.”
A truce in the 11-day conflict has been undermined by Sudan’s army and paramilitary force. Reuters reports: “Sudan’s army and a paramilitary force battled on the outskirts of the capital on Wednesday, undermining a truce in an 11-day conflict that civilian groups fear could revive the influence of ousted autocrat Omar al-Bashir and his loyalists.”
Crowds of families have been growing at Sudan’s border crossing with Egypt, desperately trying to escape their country’s violence and sometimes waiting for days with little food or shelter, witnesses said on Wednesday. People have been making exhausting drives across the desert to access points out of the country, including the Arqin crossing into Egypt at the northern border, where families have been spending nights outside in the desert, waiting to be let in.
Sudanese authorities and the RSF have traded accusations over the release of prison inmates in Sudan. Thousands of convicted criminals, including some sentenced to death, were held in the vast Kober prison in Khartoum, along with senior and lower-ranking officials from the Bashir regime, which was toppled four years ago.
Cyprus’s foreign ministry spokesperson Theodoros Gotsis told the Guardian that some of the evacuees who had arrived on the first flights had spent Tuesday night in an army training camp in Larnaca. “We have activated our non-combatant national evacuation operation and as part of that all facilities at our disposal are being used,” he said ahead of a fourth RAF flight arriving at the island’s main international airport.
That’s it from me, Maya Yang, as we wrap up the blog for today. Thank you.
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has said the UK “cannot guarantee” how many further evacuation flights will depart once the 72-hour ceasefire in Sudan expires on Thursday night, PA reports.
#Breaking Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has said the UK “cannot guarantee” how many further evacuation flights will depart once the 72-hour ceasefire in Sudan expires on Thursday night pic.twitter.com/xa5RTkdlD1
— PA Media (@PA) April 26, 2023
A Moroccan academic rescued from Sudan told how a Sudanese family sheltered her for more than a week after she was caught up in the violence that rocked the country.
Agence France-Presse reports:
She and others people who finally escaped the violence told their stories to AFP after flying into Paris Wednesday.
Fierce fighting between warring generals has killed hundreds and sparked a mass flight of people.
Doctoral student Leila Oulkebous told AFP had just reached Tuti Island to the north of the capital, where she was carrying out research for her geography thesis, when the violence broke out almost two weeks ago.
“I had barely arrived, I turned around and I see explosions, I hear loud bangs, exchanges of fire”, said 28-year-old Oulkebous.
Among a group of 245 evacuated with the help of the French embassy, she said it was a “miracle” she was still alive.
Unable to return to her hotel once the fighting started, she spent days trapped on the island, which lies at the confluence of the White and Blue Niles.
It was a Sudanese family who saved her, taking her in, hosting her for more than a week, offering home-cooked meals and reassurance.
“It is thanks to them that I was able to cope with the shock,” Oulkebous said.
As explosions and gunfire rang out across the city, she and her hosts took cover under their beds.
“I cried, I had heart palpitations, I was breathless,” Oulkebous said. “I thought it was over for me.”
“Those outside were afraid of getting hit by bullets, and those inside were afraid of the shells”.
At one point, a shell fell on a nearby house and “a whole family died”, she said.
Finally, a member of the French embassy who lived on the island, came to her rescue and it was thanks to French help that she was among those who made it to Paris Wednesday.
Six UK flights have evacuated 536 people from war-torn Sudan, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said.
Sudan update:
— Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (@FCDOGovUK) April 26, 2023
536 people have now been evacuated from Sudan on 6 UK flights as of 9pm tonight. pic.twitter.com/RVAfJMA8bj
The UN assistant secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and deputy emergency relief coordinator has addressed the security council, calling the situation in Sudan "a nightmare for ordinary citizens and aid workers alike.”
In an address to the UN, Joyce Msuya urged international support and doubled down on the UN’s pledge to assist civilians in the midst of the violence.
“What has been unfolding there since April 15th is a nightmare for ordinary citizens and aid workers alike. The fighting must stop…
The situation is extremely dangerous, and alarming. Madame President, our commitment to the people of Sudan remains resolute.
While we have been forced to reduce our footprint in areas where fighting is at its most intense, let there be no mistake: We are not leaving Sudan. A humanitarian leadership team will remain in the country, based in Port Sudan, to lead operations…
International humanitarian law is unequivocal. All parties to the conflict must respect civilians and civilian infrastructure, taking constant care to spare them. This includes allowing safe passage for civilians to leave areas of hostilities on a voluntary basis.”
A sixth RAF transport plane carrying evacuees is about to land in Cyprus, well short of the total number originally expected by this time but indicative of the pick up in pace of the rescue mission.
It is not known how many British nationals who are believed to include women and children are on the A400M plane but, as has been the case thus far, they will be processed in Larnaca before embarking on onwards journeys. Given the hour they will quite possibly stay overnight in a military training facility in Larnaca seconded by the Cypriot government for the purposes of the rescue operation.
American cititzens of Somali descent have been among the evacuees who have flown in on RAF flights. One, a father who was travelling with his daughter, described his joy at being put on the British military plane. “We are very grateful, very grateful,” he told the Guardian. “We were escorted there [the airstrip] by the military,” he said choosing not to elaborate further when US embassy officials intervened. “Tomorrow we will go to America, we’re very happy.”
A second Stansted-bound charter flight will fly out of Cyprus this evening with UK passport holders who had arrived on earlier RAF transport planes.
Nigeria has started evacuating the first batch of its nationals from Sudan, Agence France-Presse reports.
On Wednesday, the neighboring country of Sudan started evacuating around 3,500 of its nationals, mostly students.
“The evacuation of our citizens has commenced. Seven buses have left Khartoum and they are heading to Egypt,” Manzo Ezekiel, spokesman for Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) told AFP.
Foreign minister Geoffrey Onyeama told reporters 40 buses have been hired to transport Nigerian citizens to Egypt, though trip from Khartoum will take time.
“The distance is quite considerable. We need a couple of days to evacuate everybody,” he said.
Khartoum to Aswan is about 1,200 kilometres (745 miles).
The minister said Nigerian military cargo planes and private airline Air Peace will fly the citizens back to Nigeria.
Officials said there are more than 5,000 Nigerians in Sudan.
Onimode Bandele, NEMA special duties director, told AFP on Tuesday officials including embassy staff were at the collection centre to assist in the process.
“We are looking at over 5,000 Nigerians, but right now we are talking of 3,500, including students, that will be transported in buses to Aswan in Egypt,” he said.
The World Health Organization said on Wednesday that it was assessing a public health threat after fighters in Sudan took over a national laboratory holding samples of deadly disease, Agence France-Presse reports.
“We are also concerned that those occupying the lab could be accidentally exposed to pathogens stored there,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva.
“WHO is seeking more information and conducting a risk assessment,” he added.
A day earlier, WHO’s Sudan representative Nima Saeed Abid said that the laboratory seizure had created an “extremely, extremely dangerous” situation.
“There is a huge biological risk associated with the occupation of the central public health lab,” Abid said.
The lab held samples of pathogens including measles, tuberculosis, cholera, polio and SARS CoV-2, said Olivier le Polain, WHO’s incident manager for the Sudan response told reporters, AFP reports.
Sudan’s central commission of medical laboratories added that fighters were using the lab as a base, warning that “targeting them could lead to a health and environmental catastrophe with unimaginable consequences.”
WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan said the primary risk was for any untrained people in the lab, who could “accidentally expose themselves to the pathogen.”
“But there are always obviously secondary risks that someone might leave that laboratory and infect someone else,” he said.
White House confirms second American death in Sudan
The White House has confirmed the death of a second American in Sudan.
Reuters reports:
A second American has died in Sudan, the White House said on Wednesday, and U.S. authorities are helping a small number of citizens seeking to leave the country during a ceasefire that has curbed fighting.
While sporadic violence continues, the ceasefire announced by the United States on Monday appears to be holding, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.
“So we want to take advantage of that ceasefire to make sure that Americans know if they want to make the move ... we’re gonna see what we can do to get them the information they need to link up with these ground routes,” he said on CNN.
“It is still dangerous. I want to stress that. It is still dangerous, but the ceasefire seems to be holding or at least contributing to a reduction in violence.”
President Joe Biden has directed U.S. officials to help as many Americans as possible, and they were “actively facilitating the departure of a relatively small number of Americans” who wanted to leave.
U.S. officials have put that number in the dozens.
Some U.S. citizens had arrived at Port Sudan to evacuate, and the United States was continuing to support other limited evacuation efforts via ground routes, he added.
USAID has deployed teams in the region and was prepared to help provide humanitarian assistance in the event the ceasefire was extended, Kirby told reporters.
Interim summary
It is slightly past 6:30pm in Khartoum. Here is where things stand:
Britain has evacuated 301 people from conflict-ridden Sudan and the aim is to reach a total of eight British evacuation flights by the end of Wednesday, the prime minister Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson said. “Four flights have now departed, carrying 301 people,” the spokesman told reporters, adding four further flights were expected over the course of Wednesday.
Omar al-Bashir is in custody in a military hospital amid reports of RSF prison breaks, with Reuters reporting that Sudan’s army said the ousted former president was being held in a military hospital under police custody. It claimed that the formerly jailed Bashir and about 30 others were moved to the hospital on the recommendation of medical staff in Kober prison before fighting broke out in the country.
The British Red Cross has warned that the “desperate” humanitarian need in Sudan risks becoming “catastrophic”. Sam Turner, head of east and southern African region, said: “We expect the humanitarian need will only grow in the coming days and weeks, including in neighbouring countries as people flee their homes to seek safety.”
The AFP newswire reports that Ahmed Harun, a leading figure of the regime of deposed dictator Omar al-Bashir, has said he has escaped prison. It reports: “Harun, who led the regime’s infamous counter-insurgency campaign in the western Darfur region in the mid-2000s and is wanted for war crimes by the international criminal court, said he had broken out of the capital’s Kober prison.”
A truce in the 11-day conflict has been undermined by Sudan’s army and paramilitary force. Reuters reports: “Sudan’s army and a paramilitary force battled on the outskirts of the capital on Wednesday, undermining a truce in an 11-day conflict that civilian groups fear could revive the influence of ousted autocrat Omar al-Bashir and his loyalists.”
Crowds of families have been growing at Sudan’s border crossing with Egypt, desperately trying to escape their country’s violence and sometimes waiting for days with little food or shelter, witnesses said on Wednesday. People have been making exhausting drives across the desert to access points out of the country, including the Arqin crossing into Egypt at the northern border, where families have been spending nights outside in the desert, waiting to be let in.
Sudanese authorities and the RSF have traded accusations over the release of prison inmates in Sudan. Thousands of convicted criminals, including some sentenced to death, were held in the vast Kober prison in Khartoum, along with senior and lower-ranking officials from the Bashir regime, which was toppled four years ago.
Cyprus’s foreign ministry spokesperson Theodoros Gotsis told the Guardian that some of the evacuees who had arrived on the first flights had spent Tuesday night in an army training camp in Larnaca. “We have activated our non-combatant national evacuation operation and as part of that all facilities at our disposal are being used,” he said ahead of a fourth RAF flight arriving at the island’s main international airport.
Updated
The United Nations high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) has issued a statement after the UK home secretary’s statements made during her media rounds today.
Suella Braverman falsely claimed Sudanese asylum seekers had “various” legal ways to reach the UK through the UNHCR.
She said there was “no good reason” for those fleeing violence in Sudan to cross the Channel in small boats, and urged asylum seekers to contact the UNHCR.
She said:
If you are fleeing Sudan for humanitarian reasons, there are various mechanisms you can use, the UNHCR is present in the region and they are the right mechanism by which people should apply if they do want to seek asylum in the UK.
But the UNHCR said it was “aware” of the statement and “wished to clarify” that there is “no mechanism” for refugees to seek asylum in the UK through the organisation.
UNHCR Statement on Asylum Processing and Resettlement to the UK: https://t.co/XdIuLItLX4
— UNHCR United Kingdom (@UNHCRUK) April 26, 2023
UNHCR wishes to clarify that there is no mechanism through which refugees can approach UNHCR with the intention of seeking asylum in the U.K. There is no asylum visa or ‘queue’ for the U.K.
Updated
The British Red Cross has warned that the “desperate” humanitarian need in Sudan risks becoming “catastrophic”.
Sam Turner, head of east and southern African region, said:
The fighting has led to hundreds of fatalities and thousands have been injured, with many more people fearing for their lives or forced to flee their homes.
Hospitals in Khartoum are quickly running out of even basic supplies, food, water and facing electricity cuts. Staff there urgently need first aid and medical kits, stretchers and beds, as well as diesel for power generators.
The ICRC and IFRC are working closely with Sudanese Red Crescent Society volunteers who are on the ground to offer support in health facilities, with hundreds of them already providing first aid in Khartoum, Merowe and Darfur.
We expect the humanitarian need will only grow in the coming days and weeks, including in neighbouring countries as people flee their homes to seek safety.
Updated
A fifth plane carrying evacuees out of Sudan has just landed in Cyprus as the airlift picks up pace.
The C-130 Hercules arrived at Larnaca international airport barely three hours after an RAF plane with 79 British nationals also touched down on the airstrip. The plane is thought to be carrying roughly the same number of evacuees.
A second Stansted-bound charter flight is expected to depart Cyprus in the next hour.
Updated
If you want more on the backgrounds of the two generals who have led Sudan to the brink of civil war, the New York Times has interviewed its chief Africa correspondent, Declan Walsh (formally of this parish), for its The Daily podcast. It’s worth a listen.
Updated
Agence France-Presse has more on the fighting that is putting the truce in jeopardy in Sudan, and the former regime members fleeing prison.
The AFP newswire reports that Ahmed Harun, a leading figure of the regime of deposed dictator Omar al-Bashir, has said he has escaped prison.
It reports:
Harun, who led the regime’s infamous counter-insurgency campaign in the western Darfur region in the mid-2000s and is wanted for war crimes by the international criminal court, said he had broken out of the capital’s Kober prison.
After being trapped in the empty jail in “the crossfire of this current battle”, Harun said in a recorded TV address that he and fellow ex-regime members had taken “our protection in our own hands”.
AFP said it was unclear which side may have helped to free the former regime members, but a statement from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) headed by paramilitary leader Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, claimed the conflict was “a cover” by “coup leaders” to “get the leaders of the deposed regime out of prison”.
Deposed dictator Omar al-Bashir, 79, who was ousted by the military in 2019 following pro-democracy protests, had also been held in Kober prison but was transferred to a military hospital before fighting broke out on 15 April5. The army said he remained under judicial police guard.
Witnesses told AFP that anti-aircraft guns have been targeting fighter jets over the city of Omdurman – the most populous city in the country, which is situated opposite Khartoum – after the army launched air strikes against rival paramilitary forces in the capital late Tuesday.
Multiple foreign governments have frantically organised road convoys, aircraft and ships to get thousands of their nationals out of Sudan, and citizens have fled overland to neighbouring countries.
The UN said it has “received reports of tens of thousands of people arriving in the Central African Republic, Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, and South Sudan”.
Updated
Khalid Abdelaziz and Nadine Awadalla of Reuters have filed the following story from Khartoum.
Sudan’s army and a paramilitary force battled on the outskirts of the capital on Wednesday, undermining a truce in an 11-day conflict that civilian groups fear could revive the influence of ousted autocrat Omar al-Bashir and his loyalists.
Fuelling those concerns, the army confirmed the transfer of 79-year-old Bashir from Khartoum’s Kober prison to a military hospital, along with at least five of his former officials, before hostilities started on April 15.
Air strikes and artillery have killed at least 459 people, wounded more than 4,000, destroyed hospitals and limited food distribution in the vast nation where a third of the 46 million people were already reliant on humanitarian aid.
Foreigners fleeing Khartoum have described bodies littering streets, buildings on fire, residential areas turned into battlefields and youths roaming with large knives. The White House said a second American had died there.
“It was horrible,” said Thanassis Pagoulatos, the 80-year old Greek owner of the Acropole hotel in Khartoum, after arriving in Athens to the embrace of emotional relatives.
“It has been more than 10 days without any electricity, without water, and five days nearly without food,” he added, describing shooting and bombing. “Really, the people are suffering, the Sudanese people.”
Over the weekend, thousands of inmates were freed outright from prison, including a former minister in Bashir’s government who, like him, is wanted on war crimes charges by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague.
At least one other of the group transferred to hospital is wanted by the ICC.
First plane carrying Sudan evacuees lands at Stansted Airport – video
Reacting to the government’s plans to push on with its controversial Illegal Migrants Bill, Josie Naughton, CEO of refugee charity funder Choose Love said:
The Sudan crisis exposes the government’s Refugee Ban Bill for what it is: an inhumane piece of legislation belonging to a different era.
As the world rises to the challenge of mass displacement from Sudan, the UK is turning its back on the global principles required to maintain refugees’ rights to protection.
Instead, this Bill will rip families apart, re-traumatise survivors of conflict and persecution, and most shamefully of all, it will criminalise and detain unaccompanied children. The world’s displaced population will grow exponentially in the coming decades, international cooperation, compassion and integration is our only solution.
British and Cypriot officials say the airlift operation will continue for “as long as it can”.
“It will cease when the ceasefire ceases,” said Cyprus’s ministry of foreign affairs spokesperson Theodoros Gotsis. “It is a humanitarian operation and will continue for as long as it can.”
Members of the UK government’s rapid deployment team also told journalists the mission would go on for as long as the truce allowed. “On background we can say there is no time limit,” said one.
The UK has evacuated 301 people from Sudan so far.
Sudan’s warring factions have declared a ceasefire until midnight Thursday. As many as 1,000 people could be transferred to Cyprus by midnight today if the six transport planes slated to fly into the eastern Mediterranean island keep to schedule.
Updated
Pressed on what safe and legal routes there were to the UK from Sudan for children fleeing the war, Rishi Sunak was unable to answer in parliament earlier, only offering the fact that the UK had spent £250m on aid to Sudan in the past five years.
Stephen Flynn, the SNP’s leader in Westminster told the Commons: “Can I ask the prime minister to outline the safe and legal route available to a child refugee seeking to flee Sudan and come to the UK?”
Sunak replied: “As outlined earlier, our priority in Sudan, first and foremost, was to evacuate our diplomats and their families, which I’m very pleased we were one of the first countries to be able to do. Since yesterday, we have been conducting a large-scale evacuation of British nationals.”
Sunak added “We have some of the largest numbers of British nationals on the ground and rightly – and I am sure the whole House will agree with me – that it is reasonable, legal, and fair to prioritise those most vulnerable families, particularly those with elderly people in them, medical conditions, but also children. That’s what we are in the process of doing and I pay tribute to all those who are making it possible.”
Flynn continued “To be clear, and I think everyone in the house is aware of this, children in Sudan are already dying … we need some more humanity in this debate rather than the race to the bottom.
“So, can I ask the prime minister – now that he has confirmed that there is no safe legal route – will he therefore confirm that it would be his government’s intention to detain and deport a child refugee who flees Sudan and comes to the UK?”
Sunak replied “we have invested almost £250m in humanitarian support in Sudan over the past five years … this country has a proud record of compassionately supporting those who need our assistance”, but was still unable to specify how a child fleeing war in Sudan would be able to legally apply for asylum in the UK, even if they had prior family connections to the country.
Here is the exchange on video:
Updated
Here is the first picture of the chartered plane that arrived at London Stansted airport from Larnaca in Cyprus, carrying the first people that the UK has evacuated from Sudan in its current operation.
Updated
The UK’s Ministry of Defence has issued photos of people boarding evacuation flights in Sudan.
Updated
The BBC reports that there is speculation about whether the passengers at Stansted who have just arrived on the evacuation flight from Sudan will be taken through international arrivals as travellers usually would, or whether they will instead be taken via bus from the plane directly to volunteers and support workers.
First flight carrying British nationals evacuated from Sudan lands at Stansted
PA Media has a quick snap that the first flight carrying British nationals evacuated from Sudan has landed at Stansted airport.
More details soon …
Updated
Crowds of families have been growing at Sudan’s border crossing with Egypt, desperately trying to escape their country’s violence and sometimes waiting for days with little food or shelter, witnesses said on Wednesday.
People have been making exhausting drives across the desert to access points out of the country, including the Arqin crossing into Egypt at the northern border, where families have been spending nights outside in the desert, waiting to be let in. Buses were queuing up at the crossing.
“It’s a mess – long lines of elderly people, patients, women and children waiting in miserable conditions,” said Moaz al-Ser, a Sudanese teacher who arrived along with his wife and three children at the border a day earlier. He told Associated Press: “Authorities on both sides don’t have the capacity to handle such a growing number of arrivals.”
Updated
The latest evacuees to be flown into Cyprus are now being processed at Larnaca airport.
A UK government rapid deployment spokesperson says 79 people were on board the RAF C-130 aircraft, the fourth to arrive in Cyprus since Tuesday evening. “Because the vast majority are babies, toddlers, children and the elderly who have emerged from a deeply shocking environment, they will not be speaking to the media,” she said.
An estimated 300 evacuees have been flown into Larnaca so far. A second charter plane bound for Stansted will leave the airport with evacuees on board in the next couple of hours.
The transport plane has returned to RAF Akrotiri, where it will refuel before flying again to Sudan in what has become a race against the clock before the 72-hour ceasefire ends on Thursday midnight.
Updated
Downing Street has said British evacuees are being processed in an “orderly and manageable way” in Sudan and that there is no suggestion the British operation will have to leave the Wadi Saeedna airstrip imminently.
The prime minister’s official spokesperson said: “From the information we are getting from those who are making their way, we are not seeing those who are making that travel having significant issues. We’re not seeing any evidence as it stands that we will have to leave the airport imminently. We are still processing people through in an orderly and manageable way.”
Additionally PA Media reports that the deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden, will chair another Cobra meeting on Sudan on Wednesday afternoon.
Updated
Britain has evacuated 301 people from conflict-ridden Sudan
Britain has evacuated 301 people from conflict-ridden Sudan and the aim is to reach a total of eight British evacuation flights by the end of Wednesday, the prime minister Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson said.
“Four flights have now departed, carrying 301 people,” the spokesman told reporters, adding four further flights were expected over the course of Wednesday.
“We intend to keep running the evacuation flights ... It is a fast-moving situation and it is something kept under close review bearing in mind there is a time-limited ceasefire.”
The UK government had estimated that around 4,000 Britons were stuck in Sudan.
Updated
Moroccan citizens being repatriated from Sudan have arrived at the Mohammed V international airport, in Casablanca.
Updated
Sudanese authorities and the RSF have traded accusations over the release of prison inmates in Sudan. Thousands of convicted criminals, including some sentenced to death, were held in the vast Kober prison in Khartoum, along with senior and lower-ranking officials from the Bashir regime, which was toppled four years ago.
Police say paramilitary gunmen had stormed into five prisons over the weekend, including Kober, killing several guards and opening the gates. Reuters reports the RSF has blamed authorities for letting the former government minister Ali Haroun out.
The release of convicted criminals added to a growing sense of lawlessness in Khartoum, where residents have reported worsening insecurity, with widespread looting and gangs roaming the streets.
The international criminal court in The Hague has accused Haroun of organising militias to attack civilians in Darfur in 2003 and 2004.
Updated
Helena Smith is on the tarmac in Cyprus where a A400M transport plane has just landed on day two of the UK’s evacuation operation.
About 70 men, women and children are believed to be onboard. Passengers, who are still on the aircraft, will be bussed to a processing centre where personnel from RAF Akrotiri, one of the two British sovereign bases on the island, will process them before they are put on UK government-funded charter planes for Stansted.
The transport plane is the first of six expected to fly into Cyprus today in what is a race againstthe clock to bring evacuees to safety as the 72-hour ceasefire, due to end at midnight on Thursday, draws down.
Updated
Journalists from AFP have spoken to some of the people who arrived in Jeddah on a Saudi-flagged vessel this morning that was carrying over 1,500 evacuees from Sudan.
Wissam Moustafa had travelled from the US to Sudan to celebrate the Eid al-Fitr holiday with family, only to be caught up in the fighting. “I had the chance to leave, not like my sisters,” said a tearful Moustafa, who holds an American passport, as she disembarked the ship. “I don’t know whether they will be able to get out.”
Bilal Al Ayoubi, a 37-year-old Lebanese national, had only been in Sudan for a short time before he had to flee. He said he felt “very close to it”. “Its people are very kind and don’t deserve what’s happening to them,” he said.
Hadia Aladwani of Egypt spent 16 years in Sudan, where her husband ran a plastics factory, staying through previous periods of turmoil including the protests that led to the army toppling longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir in 2019.
This week, however, they decided that trying to ride out the current crisis was untenable. “We left our houses, all our belongings, so for sure we feel as if we are in a nightmare”, Aladwani said.
The arrivals on Wednesday represented more than 50 countries, ranging from the Philippines to Zimbabwe and from Ireland to Nicaragua, according to a Saudi foreign ministry statement.
Helena Smith is in Cyprus for the Guardian:
Cyprus’s foreign ministry spokesperson Theodoros Gotsis told the Guardian that some of the evacuees who had arrived on the first flights had spent Tuesday night in an army training camp in Larnaca.
“We have activated our non-combatant national evacuation operation and as part of that all facilities at our disposal are being used,” he said ahead of a fourth RAF flight arriving at the island’s main international airport.
The rescue mechanism had been greenlighted at the request of UK authorities. “It’s a very big operation. Some 4,000 people are expected to arrive from Sudan and in terms of numbers that’s far too big for the British [military] bases [on Cyprus] to handle. This is part of our fruitful relationship with Britain, a bilateral security operation in full flow.”
The eastern Mediterranean island is the designated regional hub for such evacuation operations in the Middle East.
Updated
A British national in Khartoum plans to walk for four hours from his location to the Wadi Saeedna airstrip, despite the threat of being shot and robbed, in the hope of boarding an evacuation flight to the UK.
Tarig Babikir, 42, who used to live in Coventry, told the PA news agency: “I’m going to go through national army checkpoints and paramilitary checkpoints, and most likely I’m going to encounter some armed gangs as well.
“I’m carrying no cash as you can get robbed on the streets, and I’m going to hide my mobile phone.”
Babikir’s Ukrainian mother and Sudanese father both have expired UK visas, so he will have to leave them behind with other relatives.
“My dad is recovering from a stroke, but the best option right now is to leave and I will probably come back in a month’s time,” he said.
He added he has been told by the UK government that two evacuation flights were due to leave Wadi Saeedna on Wednesday evening, and he would be staying with a friend in Kent upon arriving back in the UK, adding: “It’s complete anarchy right now, complete chaos. Anyone can rob you, anyone can shoot you.”
Updated
Reuters reports that Theodoros Gotsis, a spokesperson for Cyprus’s ministry of foreign affairs, has said of the UK evacuation of people from Sudan, which is using Cyprus as a staging post, that “the effort is for a smooth operation for people arriving, then leaving as soon as possible”.
At least 240 Britons arrived from Sudan to Larnaca in Cyprus overnight to early Wednesday. Diplomats said that about 170 individuals who had arrived overnight to the east Mediterranean island had already been placed on a repatriation flight to the UK. Another 150 people were due on an early afternoon flight, diplomats said, and more flights were expected during the day.
The British government has estimated that around 4,000 Britons were stuck in Sudan.
Updated
The UK’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has mentioned the evacuations from Sudan at the beginning of his appearance in parliament today. He told MPs:
The UK will continue to work to end the bloodshed in Sudan and support a democratic government. We have begun a large-scale evacuation of British nationals and I pay tribute to all those carrying out this complex operation.
The British high commissioner to Cyprus has told Sky News that people are being boarded on to the UK evacuation flights from Sudan on a “first come, first serve basis”, rather than in the set of priorities that the Foreign Office laid out when first announcing the plans. Irfan Siddiq told viewers:
When we started this operation we were actively reaching out to those we believed were most vulnerable and inviting them to come to the airport.
But as soon as it became clear there was a huge amount of demand and this route was viable we have essentially opened it up to all British nationals who feel able to make it to the airfield. People are essentially being boarded on a first come, first serve basis.
The Foreign Office website, at the time of writing, still states:
We can only evacuate British passport holders and immediate family members (spouse/partner and children under 18 years old) who are either non-visa nationals or those with existing UK entry clearance. This is defined as anyone with a valid UK visa / visa vignette in their passport, or a UK Biometric Residence permit. Seats will be allocated on the basis of vulnerability, starting with family groups with children, the elderly or people with documented medical conditions.
However it also states that British nationals should travel to Wadi Saeedna airfield “as soon as possible to be processed for the flight.”
Australia’s foreign minister Penny Wong has tweeted to say that the country was working closely with other countries to evacuate Australians from Sudan. She said:
Australia is working closely with partner countries and agencies to facilitate the safe departure of our citizens and their families from Sudan. The department of foreign affairs and trade’s crisis centre is operating 24/7, and additional consular officers have been deployed to support Australians and their families.
Australia is working closely with partner countries and agencies to facilitate the safe departure of our citizens and their families from Sudan.
— Senator Penny Wong (@SenatorWong) April 26, 2023
@DFAT's crisis centre is operating 24/7 & additional consular officers have been deployed to support Australians and their families.
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This handout photo made available today by the chief of the defence staff of France shows evacuees boarding the French navy frigate Lorraine in Port Sudan yesterday. It was departing for Jeddah in agreement with Saudi authorities.
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Intensity of clashes eases amid Sudan truce, residents say
Sudanese in the capital of Khartoum and the neighbouring city of Omdurman reported sporadic clashes early on Wednesday between the military and a rival paramilitary force, but told Associated Press that the intensity of fighting had dwindled on the second day of a three-day truce.
Many residents of the capital emerged from their homes to seek food and water, lining up at bakeries or grocery stores, witnesses said. Some inspected shops or homes that had been destroyed or looted during the fighting. Others joined the tens of thousands who have been streaming out of the city in recent days.
“There is a sense of calm in my area and neighbourhoods,” said Mahasen Ali, a tea vendor who lives in Khartoum’s southern neighbourhood of May. “But all are afraid of what’s next.” She said that despite the relative lull, the sound of gunfire and explosions could still be heard in the city.
Clashes were centred in more limited pockets of Khartoum and Omdurman, residents said, mainly around the military’s headquarters and the Republican Palace, the seat of power. An exchange of fire rattled the Kafouri neighbhourhood, where many fighters from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces are deployed.
The relative reduction of fighting Wednesday was a rare moment of easing for the millions of Sudanese who have been caught in the crossfire ever since the forces of the country’s two top generals went to war with each other on 15 April. Food has been growing more difficult to obtain, with electricity cut off across much of the capital and other cities and many hospitals shut down.
In a country where a third of the population of 46 million already needed humanitarian assistance, multiple aid agencies have had to suspend operations. The UN refugee agency said it was gearing up for potentially tens of thousands of people fleeing into neighbouring countries.
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The Sky News Africa correspondent Yousra Elbagir has heard from one person who described the UK evacuation effort as “chaos”. Sky News quotes British-Sudanese national Hanadi Aboualela saying:
The team did not seem prepared, with many of them running around not knowing what to do. Our wait was longer than it should have been due to the ineffectiveness of the British team’s ability to communicate with the Sudanese army. It shouldn’t have been mine, or anyone else’s job to translate for them.
It was chaos, one of the Sudanese soldiers I was translating for was just as confused and stated that all other country evacuations were smooth, this was the only team they struggled with.
I am still having to translate for one mother who is here with her toddler. I don’t mind doing so, but given that it has taken them ten days to start evacuating, you would think they would have thought to have a translator on the team.
Here are some of the scenes in Istanbul where Turkish citizens who have been evacuated from Sudan have arrived.
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Al-Bashir in custody in military hospital amid reports of RSF prison breaks
Earlier, Reuters reported that Sudan’s army said the ousted former president is being held in a military hospital under police custody. It claimed that the formerly jailed Omar al-Bashir and about 30 others were moved to the hospital on the recommendation of medical staff in Kober prison before fighting broke out in the country. [See 9.23 BST]
Reuters is also reporting a statement from the interior ministry, which claims that in prison raids taking place 21-24 April, Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) broke into five prisons and released detainees. Reuters reports police said the raid on Kober led to the killing and injury of several prison officials, adding that the RSF released all who were held there.
Bashir was ousted in 2019, and is wanted by the international criminal court on charges of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes related to the Darfur conflict.
An earlier version of this post originally suggested that Omar al-Bashir may have been freed during one of the prison breaks, but this now appears to have been ruled out. Apologies.
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First UK flight carrying Sudan evacuees heading from Cyprus to London
The first evacuees bound for the UK have just left Cyprus on a specially designated charter plane. The flight, which is heading to Stansted airport, is carrying British nationals and dependents who arrived on RAF A400M transport planes last night and early this morning.
“It is the first charter to leave,” a source told the Guardian. “Three RAF planes have arrived with evacuees so far, one at 8.40pm last night, one at 3.20am this morning and one at 6.30am today.”
Another flight from Sudan to Cyprus is expected to arrive at 2.30pm local time (12.30pm BST).
Officials hope that six RAF airlifts will reach the Easter Mediterranean island today. But those handling the rescue operation acknowledged that it had been unpredictable with schedules and flight time arrivals substantially delayed because of the difficulties people were encountering getting to the airstrip in Khartoum.
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Sudan’s army on Wednesday said ousted former president Omar al-Bashir is being held in a military hospital under police custody.
Bashir and about 30 others were moved to the hospital on the recommendation of medical staff in Kober prison before fighting between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) broke out, Reuters reported the statement said.
The claims have not been independently verified.
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Helena Smith reports from Cyprus that a fourth RAF flight – one of another six expected today – is due to arrive at 2.30pm local time (12.30pm BST).
The UK’s Foreign Office has posted some images of what awaits people when they arrive in Cyprus after being airlifted by the RAF from Sudan.
UK Nationals are arriving in Cyprus from Sudan on military planes.
— Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (@FCDOGovUK) April 26, 2023
More flights will follow throughout the day. pic.twitter.com/CZVZvtefis
Helena Smith is in Cyprus for the Guardian:
British civilians landing in Cyprus from Sudan are being processed in this special coordination centre behind Larnaca old airport.
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Here are some of the images after a ship carrying 1,687 civilians from more than 50 countries fleeing violence in Sudan docked in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday.
AFP reports that Saudi Arabia has received several rounds of evacuees by air and sea since fighting broke out in Africa’s third-biggest country on 15 April, part of what analysts describe as an effort to position itself as a major player in responding to regional crises.
The group that arrived in the coastal city of Jeddah from Port Sudan on Wednesday was “transported by one of the kingdom’s ships, and the kingdom was keen to provide all the basic needs of foreign nationals in preparation for their departure”, the ministry said.
The boat’s passengers included 13 Saudis, while the rest came from countries across the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Asia and the Americas, the ministry added.
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Here is a reminder of the route of the UK’s airlift operation.
Britain’s foreign secretary has been winning plaudits in some quarters. His counterpart in Cyprus, Constantinos Kombos, was thrilled this morning that three Cypriot nationals and seven other passengers of Cypriot heritage were onboard the RAF flight that arrived at Larnaka airport this morning.
“My warm thanks to my British counterpart James Cleverley for the help of his country,” he wrote on Twitter.
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France’s foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, has been at Charles-de-Gaulle airport in Roissy-en-France, near Paris, this morning to greet people disembarking from a plane from Djibouti after being evacuated from Sudan.
In a statement, the foreign ministry said the flight contained 184 French nationals and their families, as well as only about 20 nationals of other nationalities, including the EU delegate.
Bon retour du #Soudan.
— Catherine Colonna (@MinColonna) April 26, 2023
Bienvenue à Paris !! 🇫🇷 https://t.co/ybdOniZ5yP pic.twitter.com/lFmBkh5YtU
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Germany’s ministry of defence has confirmed that it has ended its evacuation programme from Sudan. In a tweet, it said:
Last night, another A400M aircraft from the Bundeswehr with 78 people landed in Egypt. This increases the total number of evacuees to over 700 – including around 200 Germans.
#Evakuierungsflüge aus #Sudan beendet: In der letzten Nacht ist eine weitere Maschine vom Typ A400M der #Bundeswehr mit 78 Personen in 🇯🇴 gelandet. Damit steigt die Gesamtzahl der Evakuierten auf über 700 – darunter rund 200 🇩🇪. pic.twitter.com/Hi8rm7rHJF
— Verteidigungsministerium (@BMVg_Bundeswehr) April 26, 2023
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Here is the video clip of UK home secretary Suella Braverman appearing on Sky News. She refused to be drawn on why the UK had not launched an evacuation operation sooner, replying “we are doing it now”. Braverman also justified British nationals being forced to make their own way to the airstrip where evacuation flights are landing, saying:
We’ve put in over 1,000 armed forces personnel who are out there. The UK has a very different scenario and community and cohorts in terms of numbers compared to other countries. The UK government has been overseeing and monitoring the situation very closely for weeks now. A decision has been made on the back of proper planning, proper assessment of the security and risks posed in Sudan. We are now removing, relocating, British nationals. This is a standard practice in terms of the advice that the Foreign Office is issuing to British nationals. It is context specific. It is highly dependent on the very sensitive and changing and fast moving circumstances in Sudan. I’m not going to sit here in a studio in London and dictate what should be happening there on the ground.
'Why didn't we bring civilians out of Sudan earlier?' - @KayBurley
— Sky News (@SkyNews) April 26, 2023
'We are doing it now' - @SuellaBraverman
The Home Secretary says the UK is "setting out an extensive programme of support" in Sudan.
Latest: https://t.co/2AeHOuX4ge
📺 Sky 501, Freeview 233 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/YVzQDtOT8l
Braverman: 200 to 300 people evacuated from Sudan so far in British airlift
The UK home secretary, Suella Braverman, has said 200 to 300 people have been evacuated from Sudan so far as part of the airlift.
PA Media reports she told Sky News: “We commenced an evacuation mission in the last 24-48 hours and we expect there to be approximately 200 to 300 people who have been relocated from Sudan in the last few flights.
“We are now commencing an extensive operation, working with over 1,000 personnel from the RAF and the armed forces.”
She defended the UK’s response, saying the government had to cope with a “larger cohort of British nationals in Sudan compared to many other countries”.
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It is worth noting as well that in this morning’s First Edition newsletter about Sudan, my colleague Archie Bland has this to say about some useful background explainers if you are trying to get up to speed with the situation in the country:
To understand the basis of the burgeoning civil war in Sudan, start with this explainer from the beginning of the conflict and this visual guide to the violence, which is most severe in Khartoum and the Darfur region. Nesrine Malik’s long read about the rise of Hemedti is a superb overview of his rivalry with Burhan, and what that has meant for the country.
You can sign up for First Edition here.
Helena Smith reports for the Guardian from Cyprus:
Despite British prime minister Rishi Sunak announcing that “many more” aircraft will be bringing in evacuees to Cyprus on Wednesday the evident empty seats on the first flight to land in Larnaka has raised questions.
The A400M transport planes famously delivers “heavier and larger loads” than other tactical airlifters, and yet only 39 people were on board when it arrived on the Eastern Mediterranean island.
UK nationals have been urged to make their own way to an airstrip in Khartoum – a journey that requires passing through countless checkpoints under “their own steam”, in sharp contrast to civilians from other nations who have been evacuated from the beseiged capital with the help of special forces.
Sunak said everyone who appeared and was “eligible” was allowed to board the plane. A second flight carrying over 100 UK passport holders and dependents arrived in Cyprus about 6.30am
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The main story in the Times of London today has a little on British politicians being defensive about criticism of their evacuation operation. The paper writes:
Rishi Sunak defended the decision to prioritise the removal of British diplomats after Germany appeared to accuse the UK of abandoning its people in a war zone. Annalena Baerbock, the German foreign minister, said that Berlin would not leave civilians “to their own devices” and that “unlike in other countries” its evacuation had included all citizens. “It was important to us that, unlike in other countries, an evacuation not only applies to our embassy staff, but to all local Germans and our partners,” she said.
Sunak argued that diplomats and their families had been “targeted”. He said: “The security situation on the ground in Sudan is complicated, it is volatile, and we wanted to make sure we could put in place processes that are going to work for people, that are going to be safe and effective.”
One defence source dismissed suggestions that Britain had abandoned its citizens. “With the benefit of hindsight it’s easy to say that we could have got more people out sooner, but by going first we paved the way for others to follow our lead,” the source said.
The son of a British citizen trying to escape Sudan has said his family have had “very limited” contact from the Home Office.
PA Media reports Saleh El-Khalifa, whose mother is attempting to flee Sudan with her elderly father, said the Home Office advice to stay indoors had not been a “viable option”.
His mother was forced to make a journey to Port Sudan with her 86-year-old father, who suffers from a terminal illness, and is trying to cross the border into Saudi Arabia, he said.
Khalifa told BBC Breakfast the journey was “beyond challenging” and that information from the Home Office had been “very limited”, adding: “It could be points that I’m not able to speak to her for a day or two.
“The first few days me and my sister tried to contact (the Home Office). The advice was the same, to stay in doors and not move. That wasn’t a viable option as there was no guarantee of their safety by staying in one location.
“That is why the majority of people have had to move to ensure their own life and safety, which is a situation no one should have to be put in.”
This morning, our First Edition newsletter has its focus on Sudan, and my colleagues Archie Bland and Nesrene Malik, whose family home is on the outskirts of Khartoum, have spoken about the difficulty Sudanese people face in fleeing the fighting:
The key routes out of the capital go north-east to Port Sudan, a city made relatively safe by its lack of strategic significance and status as an evacuation hub for westerners leaving the country, and north to the Egyptian border, where refugees must travel onward to Cairo. Even if the ceasefire were impeccably observed, there are plenty of other impediments to taking them. In this piece for Middle East Eye, Oscar Rickett and Rayhan Uddin report that ticket prices for buses out of Khartoum have at least doubled. The price for a ticket on one route from the capital to the Egyptian border has risen from $66 to $400.
The requisitioning of fuel by the two armies has meant prices have likewise soared for anyone considering travelling by car. “And you don’t just need money for that,” Nesrine said. “You need more for unforeseen costs, Egyptian currency to pay for a visa if you’re going to the border, more for onward travel to Cairo. Banks are closed, there are no ATMs or currency exchanges open, and the main money transfer app isn’t working on people’s phones. So you have to find the money before you leave in a country with no working financial network.” Meanwhile, the unreliability of phone and internet signal makes planning exit routes and checking on loved ones far more difficult.
While there are stories of remarkable generosity on the road to Port Sudan – like this one, where Twitter user @dalliasd said that in “every village and town we passed through, people would come out with hibiscus juice and cold water for the ‘Khartoum travellers’” – the journey is fraught with danger. There are fears of attacks from RSF forces who hail from poorer marginalised regions of the country and “view people from Khartoum as part of an elite that has excluded them and looked down on them,” Nesrine said. The same applies to the road north, which “runs through harsh desert territory with no shops, no towns, in 40 or 45 degree heat.”
Reuters has a little more here about the possible whereabouts of Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s former leader. Two sources at a hospital have told the news agency that he had been moved from Kober prison to a military hospital in the Sudanese capital before heavy fighting broke out there on 15 April.
The whereabouts of Bashir came into question after a former minister in his government, Ali Haroun, announced on Tuesday he had left the prison with other ex-officials. Both Bashir and Haroun are wanted by the international criminal court over alleged atrocities in Darfur.
Eibhlin Priestley was two months into a research trip to Sudan when the fighting broke out in Khartoum. The PhD candidate was preparing to leave her apartment for an interview when her partner, who was visiting from Germany, heard loud noises outside, which they soon realised were gunshots and explosions.
They covered the windows with mattresses and furniture and stayed in the apartment for four days. The temperature reached 40 degrees in the daytime, and they had no electricity or running water and limited drinking water.
At night it was pitch dark and they could hear heavy fighting very nearby. After a bullet was fired through their kitchen window, they moved in with their downstairs neighbours and another family.
Priestley, 30, and her partner stayed with the families downstairs for several days until they decided to leave, offering to take both of them with them. She decided to stay – they were expecting a pickup organised by her insurance company. But the driver was not allowed through, so the couple moved in with her landlord’s family. When they offered to take the couple with them to a safer part of the city in south Khartoum, they decided to go: they had heard reports that RSF soldiers had started entering civilian homes.
“Then we drove through [Khartoum 2, a neighbourhood close to some of the fiercest fighting] and it was just full of RSF, they were down every single street, lining the roads,” she says. The RSF stopped the car.
“And then one of the soldiers said he didn’t like the look of my partner and pulled him out of the car”. The man ordered her partner behind a wall, “making it clear he was about to shoot him,” she told the Guardian:
Updated
Most Chinese nationals have been safely evacuated in groups from Sudan to border ports of neighbouring countries, China’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday.
Spokesperson Mao Ming told a regular press briefing that it has not received any casualty reports of Chinese citizens in Sudan so far.
The Chinese consulate-general in Jeddah issued a statement early on Wednesday advising citizens who planned to evacuate to Saudi Arabia to enter through the Jeddah Islamic Port, where the consulate had sent a working group to assist evacuees.
The statement said Chinese citizens have been evacuating on their own to Saudi Arabia, but did not specify how many have arrived there.
The British government is considering a possible seaborne evacuation from Port Sudan, 500 miles from the capital, PA Media reports.
HMS Lancaster and the RFA Cardigan Bay have been sent to the region.
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The UK military could be ready to use force if needed to protect the airbase in the event it comes under attack during the airlift, although the troops are there primarily to help with logistics, the i paper reports.
The defence secretary, Ben Wallace, told LBC Radio: “The Germans are leaving tomorrow, and we will take over the facilitation at the airfield. And the reason the Germans are leaving is people have stopped coming in large numbers.”
He said only one nation can facilitate the airfield at a time, adding: “If the Spanish or the Italians or anyone else wants to fly, we’ll be the ones giving permissions effectively.”
There is “some risk that some of the planes are not full”, he said, as there are “not thousands at the gate” as in the evacuation from Afghanistan.
Updated
Second UK evacuation flight arrives in Cyprus - report
We now have confirmation that Two Royal Air Force planes have landed at Larnaca Airport in Cyprus as of 6.30am on Wednesday, with the first charter flight back to London set to depart later in the day, PA repors.
Families with young children were among those on the first flights that landed in Cyprus with a British man telling the BBC that his sister, who left Sudan overnight, felt an overwhelming sense of relief.
Three planes were due to have left conflict-torn Khartoum for Cyprus by Wednesday morning, with prime minister Rishi Sunak pledging “many more” would follow as he warned of a “critical” 24 hours.
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the UK would take charge of the Wadi Saeedna airstrip near the capital from German forces, after Berlin said its final evacuation flight would leave on Tuesday night.
He said 120 British troops have already been supporting the operation there.
About 260 people were expected to be flown out overnight on three flights, the first landing on Tuesday evening with about 40 people on board.
British nationals have been told to make their own way to the site with some fearing they will not make it due to a petrol shortage, PA reports.
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Omar al-Bashir missing amid prison attack
An attack on the prison holding deposed Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir has raised questions about his whereabouts, with one of the warring sides saying he is being held in a secure location and the other alleging he has been released.
Bashir, who ruled Sudan for three decades was overthrown during a popular uprising in 2019. He is wanted by the international criminal court (ICC) for genocide and other crimes committed during the conflict in Sudan’s western Darfur region in the 2000s.
The Sudanese military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, which together had removed Bashir from power during mass protests, are now battling one another across the capital. The fighting reached the prison over the weekend, with conflicting reports about what transpired.
Military officials told the Associated Press that Bashir, as well as Abdel-Rahim Muhammad Hussein and Ahmed Haroun – who both held senior security positions during the Darfur crisis – had been moved to a military-run medical facility in Khartoum under tight security for their own safety.
The army later accused the RSF of donning military uniforms and attacking the prison, saying they released inmates and looted the facility. The RSF, led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, denied the allegations and claimed that the military “forcibly evacuated” the facility as part of a plan to restore Bashir to power.
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Turkish civilians arrive home
The first Turkish civilians evacuated from Sudan returned to Turkey on Wednesday, with more than 100 people arriving by plane at Istanbul Airport, Reuters footage showed.
The Turks came from the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, where they had arrived overland from Sudanese capital Khartoum.
Several more flights were expected later on Wednesday to evacuate the remaining Turkish citizens crossing to Ethiopia from Sudan.
Fighting flared anew in Sudan late on Tuesday despite a ceasefire declaration by the warring factions as more people fled Khartoum and former officials, including one facing international war crimes charges, left prison.
Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan has called on both sides in Sudan to end conflict and return to negotiations.
Boat carrying 1,687 civilians reportedly reaches Saudi Arabia
A boat with 1,687 civilians from more than 50 countries fleeing violence in Sudan arrived in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday, the foreign ministry said, the largest rescue effort by the Gulf kingdom to date.
The group was “transported by one of the Kingdom’s ships, and the Kingdom was keen to provide all the basic needs of foreign nationals in preparation for their departure,” the ministry said in a statement.
Saudi Arabia has received several rounds of evacuees by air and sea, starting with boats that arrived in Jeddah on Saturday carrying 150 people including foreign diplomats and officials.
Thirteen of the civilians who arrived on Wednesday were Saudi, while the rest came from countries across the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Asia and North and Central America, the foreign ministry statement said.
All told, 2,148 people have been evacuated to the kingdom from Sudan so far, including more than 2,000 foreigners, the statement said.
Sudanese scramble to flee their homeland
Long queues are building on Sudan’s borders, where people fleeing intense fighting are facing daylong waits and demands for visas in order to cross to safety.
On Tuesday, the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR) said it was expecting 270,000 refugees to cross into Chad and South Sudan, including South Sudanese returning home. It did not have projections for Egypt or Ethiopia, where many fleeing from the capital, Khartoum, have headed, or for other neighbouring countries. The UNHCR estimated that, so far, up to 20,000 refugees have crossed into Chad from Darfur, and 4,000 into South Sudan.
The intense fighting in Khartoum, which has killed 459 civilians and left many short of supplies, medicine and cash, has caused a scramble for buses heading to the borders or to Port Sudan, where ferries to Saudi Arabia operate.
WhatsApp groups set up to help people get out of Khartoum have been circulating numbers of bus services that promise to reach the borders. Many have headed for Kandahar bus station on Khartoum’s outskirts – some on foot despite the danger of being caught in the fighting – but have found it increasingly crowded, with prices rapidly rising. Tickets reportedly cost more than $500 (£403):
UN chief warns fighting could cause ‘immense suffering for years’
Sudanese and foreigners streamed out of the capital of Khartoum and other battle zones, as fighting Tuesday shook a new three-day truce brokered by the United States and Saudi Arabia. Aid agencies raised increasing alarm over the crumbling humanitarian situation in a country reliant on outside help.
Calls for negotiations to end the crisis in Africa’s third-largest nation have been ignored. For many Sudanese, the departure of diplomats, aid workers and other foreigners and the closure of embassies are terrifying signs that international powers expect the mayhem to only worsen.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres warned that the power struggle between rival generals and their military forces is not only putting Sudan’s future at risk, “it is lighting a fuse that could detonate across borders, causing immense suffering for years, and setting development back by decades.”
The UN chief urged Sudanese military, commanded by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the rival Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group led by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, “to silence the guns” immediately.
“The conflict will not, and must not, be resolved on the battlefield,” Guterres told an emergency meeting of the UN security council late Tuesday.
A second evacuation flight carrying UK nationals has arrived in Cyprus, the BBC reports.
The British Foreign Office has not yet publicly confirmed the arrival of the flight or how many people were on board.
BBC reporter Nicholas Garnett posted a video of what appeared to be the plane taking off again this morning from Larnaca airport for a third run to Sudan. A total of three rescue flights are planned.
An RAF C130 leaves Larnaca Airport in Cyprus heading back to Sudan to pick up more British families wanting to escape the fighting. pic.twitter.com/LHQTSYwCST
— Nick Garnett (@NicholasGarnett) April 26, 2023
Updated
Opening summary
Welcome back to the Guardian’s live coverage of the conflict in Sudan.
As evacuations continue and fighting erodes a planned three-day ceasefire, UN Secretary-General António Guterres has warned that the power struggle between rival generals and their military forces is not only putting Sudan’s future at risk, “it is lighting a fuse that could detonate across borders, causing immense suffering for years, and setting development back by decades.”
The UN chief urged Sudanese military, commanded by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the rival Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group led by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, “to silence the guns” immediately.
“The conflict will not, and must not, be resolved on the battlefield,” Guterres told an emergency meeting of the UN security council late Tuesday.
We’ll have more on this story shortly. In the meantime, here are the key recent developments:
Plans are in hand for Sudan’s army commander and de facto leader of the country, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, to meet the head of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Mohamed Hamadan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, according to a newspaper in Egypt.
The RSF has claimed that the Sudanese army has breached the 72-hour ceasefire. Gunfire and airstrikes were heard in Khartoum and Omdurman, according to news agencies on Tuesday. The RSF’s claims have not been independently verified.
Britain’s first evacuation flight landed in Cyprus on Tuesday evening after Sudan’s army and the RSF backed a ceasefire. Two more flights carrying about 220 people in total are expected later.
Rishi Sunak said there will be “many more” flights evacuating British nationals from Sudan on Wednesday. The prime minister added more than 1,000 people had been contacted.
The UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, said evacuations on C130 Hercules and A400M planes would take place for as long as is possible. Germany was expected to fly its sixth extraction service on Tuesday, rescuing a total of almost 500 people.
There is a “high risk” of a biological hazard incident, according to the World Health Organization, because one of the warring factions has taken control of the national public laboratory in Sudan, which holds samples of diseases including polio and measles. “There is a huge biological risk associated with the occupation of the central public health lab,” said the WHO’s Nima Saeed Abid.
The UN refugee agency has said there could be further displacement of people, as thousands have already streamed into neighbouring Chad and South Sudan. Since the outbreak of the fighting on 15 April, at least 20,000 Sudanese have fled into Chad and about 4,000 South Sudanese refugees who had been living in Sudan have returned to their home country. One projected refugee total from the UN is as high as 270,000.
The International Rescue Committee has raised concerns about 3,000 people who have arrived at the Tunaydbah refugee camp in east Sudan, adding to the 28,000 refugees who already live there. An official has said the organisers believe more people will arrive at the camp, which has grown by more than 10% since fighting broke out.
Ukraine said it had evacuated 138 people, including 87 of its own citizens, from Sudan to Egypt during the ongoing ceasefire.
Two buses evacuating South African nationals from Sudan have arrived safely at the border with Egypt, a spokesperson for South Africa’s Department of International Relations and cooperation has said.
France has helped to airlift Irish citizens out of Sudan, according to the country’s ambassador to Dublin. Vincent Guérend said 36 Irish people were among the 500 flown from Khartoum to Djibouti on three French flights in recent days, PA Media reports.
