A summary of today's developments
Britain’s first evacuation flight landed in Cyprus on Tuesday evening after a ceasefire between Sudan’s army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) backed by two warring generals in the country. 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.
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 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.
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.
If you have been affected by the unfolding situation in Sudan and the evacuation flights and would like to speak to the Guardian about your experiences, you can do so here.
The first departure from the Wadi Saeedna airfield landed on Tuesday evening at Larnaca airport in Cyprus with 39 people on board, the BBC reported, citing British officials.
Two more flights carrying around 220 people from Sudan are expected overnight.
The evacuation of UK nationals from Sudan is “inherently dangerous” as it remains unclear how long the ceasefire will hold, the foreign secretary James Cleverly said.
He said: “As you would expect, I’ve been in Cobra meetings and other meetings on our response to this situation today. I can inform you that a Royal Air Force flight has now left Sudan carrying British nationals to safety this evening and more will follow.
“From the onset of this crisis, we’ve been planning how to get our people out. And now that our and international calls for a ceasefire in Khartoum have been heeded, we are putting those plans into effect, giving priority to those in greatest need, family groups, the sick and the elderly.
“I’m encouraged that both factions have called a 72-hour ceasefire. Of course, we cannot be sure for how long it will hold. And any evacuation from a battle-scarred city is inherently dangerous.”
The UK prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said the government was studying alternative routes for the safe exit of UK nationals in case of disruption.
Newly arrived evacuees from Sudan will be processed by police despatched from Nicosia, the island’s capital, at a building behind the old airport’s departure lounge.
They will then board charter flights for the UK. A second military transport plane carrying British passport holders from Sudan is expected to land in Larnaca around midnight local time with a third arriving in the early hours as the massive evacuation operation of British citizens picks up steam.
Cyprus has enacted a humanitarian rescue mechanism to facilitate the mass evacuation with the east Mediterranean island vowing to offer facilities to friendly countries for as long as it takes.
Some 39 people arrived on the first flight to arrive from Sudan with passengers ranging from infants to septuagenarians. No media has so far been able to get close to those who have been rescued to hear their stories.
Updated
Sudanese ex-official leaves prison after reports that al-Bashir staged breakout
Sudanese ex-official Ahmed Haroun, who served under Omar al-Bashir and is wanted by the International Criminal Court, said he and other former officials of Bashir’s government had left Kober prison and would take responsibility for their own protection.
It was not immediately clear if Bashir, who has spent extended periods in a military hospital, was at the prison, Reuters reports.
The statement comes after reports that prisoners at Kober prison, which held Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and other top deputies, had staged a break earlier this week.
Haroun said they were ready to appear in front of the judiciary whenever it was functioning, in a statement aired on Sudan’s Tayba TV.
Haroun appears to have made two statements, one to the TV station and a voice note.
He said they went out to protect themselves after everyone fled from the prison including the guards.
Aljazeera reported that Haroun’s family said he been taken to the army hospital for medical checks.
Updated
More than 1,600 Turkish citizens have been evacuated to Ethiopia, Al Jazeera reports.
The citizens were transported to Ethiopia from Sudan via buses as fighting continues in the country, said Turkish diplomatic sources to the state-run Anadolu Agency.
Citizens were reportedly taken to the Sudanese-Ethiopian border to the city of Gondar, before flying to Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa.
The unnamed source spoke on the condition of anonymity due to restrictions on talking to media.
British nations have reported that they are unable to evacuate Sudan because their families are not permitted to come with them. The Guardian’s Emine Sinmaz and Helen Sullivan report.
British nationals stranded in Sudan have spoken of their fears after their relatives were killed and wounded in the conflict.
As Britain’s first civilian evacuation flight took off from a rough airfield north of Khartoum on Tuesday afternoon, some UK citizens said they remained trapped in Sudan.
A British doctor based in London told how her 67-year-old father, a retired doctor who worked for the NHS for more than 30 years, remains in Sudan after being shot in the thigh.
The woman, who gave her name as Dr A to protect her family, said her father had been visiting his 87-year-old mother for Ramadan when gunfire, shelling and airstrikes raged across Khartoum in a fierce fight for power between the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Dr A said her father drove across the city at dawn to pick up his mother to move her to a safer part of the city when his car came under fire and he was shot by the RSF.
Read the full story here.
Evacuations of Sudanese people and foreigners continues as ongoing fighting threatens a newly brokered three-day truce, reports the Associated Press.
Sudanese and foreigners are streaming out of the capital of Khartoum and other battle zones, as fighting shakes a new three-day truce brokered by the United States and Saudi Arabia. Aid agencies raised increasing alarm Tuesday over the crumbling humanitarian situation in a country reliant on outside help.
So far, a series of short cease-fires the past week have either failed outright or brought only intermittent lulls in the fighting that has raged between the forces of the country’s two top generals since April 15. The lulls have been enough for dramatic evacuations of hundreds of foreigners by air and land, which continued Tuesday.
Our correspondent Helena Smith is now in Cyprus where the first flight carrying British evacuees landed barely an hour ago.
Among the passengers on the A400 military transport plane were UK nationals and their dependents, including immediate family members with visas to enter Britain. The plane landed at Old Larnaca airport which the Cypriot government has decided to use for the evacuation operation. Well-placed sources said the group were expected to be “put immediately” on UK-bound charter flights, although immediately may mean 48 hours.
In the last five minutes, the transport plane could be seen departing Larnaca to refuel at RAF Akrotiri, with the passengers being processed by police despatched from Nicosia. Two more flights carrying evacuees are slated to arrive in Cyprus later this evening, according to diplomats.
Updated
An attack on a prison holding Sudan’s former president Omar al-Bashir has raised questions about his whereabouts, the Associated Press reports.
Military authorities report that Bashir is being held in a secure location, while the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces accuse the military of “forcibly [evacuating]” the prison in an attempt to restore Bashir to power.
He and other former top officials had been held in Kober prison for the past four years, as Sudanese authorities declined repeated requests from the international criminal court (ICC) to hand him over.
Bashir was Sudan’s president for more than three decades until a 2019 uprising disposed him. He is wanted by the ICC for genocide committed in Sudan’s western Darfur region in the 2000s.
Updated
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said Sudan had the right to use the services of the Wagner group, the Russian private military company.
Lavrov made his comments during a news conference at the United Nations.
Updated
The first British civilians to be rescued from Sudan have arrived in Cyprus, a spokesperson for its foreign ministry said.
Approximately 40 people were onboard the flight, which landed at Larnaca airport.
Updated
The UK’s Africa minister, Andrew Mitchell, has predicted a “humanitarian catastrophe” in Sudan.
He told the Commons foreign affairs committee: “There is going to be a humanitarian catastrophe there with the position at the moment in terms of food and the humanitarian relief. Most of the humanitarian workers are leaving and they will not be able to come back until there is a ceasefire. Five of them have already been murdered.”
Asked if the government should have seen this coming, Mitchell said: “I think that is very difficult. My answer is no.
“This isn’t an ideological battle, this is a battle between two generals for power. There is no ideology involved in this, it’s raw power being fought over.”
Updated
Andrew Mitchell, the UK’s minister for Africa, has urged all British nationals in Sudan to head to the airstrip in the capital, Khartoum, within the next hour.
He told the foreign affairs select committee that two flights were expected to leave tonight and people should try to arrive “before 8pm” local time, which is 7pm in the UK.
However, Mitchell said people must make it there “by their own steam”.
He said: “We are continuing to work up other options to assist British nationals wanting to leave Sudan, including other points of exit.
“Travel within Sudan is conducted at British nationals’ own risk and plans may change depending on the security situation.”
The first flight evacuating British nationals departed earlier today.
Updated
US confident it can help end Sudan conflict, White House says
The US is confident it can exert influence in Sudan to try to end the conflict, a White House spokesperson said.
Washington is working with partners in the region to stop the violence, John Kirby told Al Jazeera.
He said: “We’re pretty confident that we can have an influence here, noting that the US helped broker the current ceasefire.
“We’ve got a stake here, we’ve got an interest at the table, and we’re going to continue to use that and the United States’ convening power to try to get these two sides together to get the violence down.”
Updated
Two German endurance athletes on a mission to run 12,000km (7,400 miles) between the northernmost and southernmost tips of Africa had a sudden change in plans after being trapped in Sudan by fighting and having to find a way to get out of the country.
Mareike Roewekamp, 41, and Horst Schauer, 67, were planning to run through 12 countries over at least eight months and already had Egypt and Tunisia under their belts when they were in Sudan this month.
They told Reuters they were at a hotel in the government district in Khartoum when they noticed military movements.
“We realised pretty quickly that there would be no more flights and that we would have to stay in the hotel,” said Schauer.
The couple stayed there for days, rationing the battery left on their mobile phones in order to check for messages.
Roewekamp said: “Every day there was this risk-benefit trade-off. Do I rather stay quiet and wait, wait in here and be safer here? Or do I have to go out at some point and see if I can get something to drink or start communicating and try to get out of this situation.”
Updated
Andrew Mitchell, the UK’s Africa minister, is being grilled by the foreign affairs select committee on the situation in Sudan.
When asked whether France was doing a better job with its evacuation effort than Britain after some UK nationals reported problems receiving assistance, Mitchell replied: “No I don’t, I think everyone is going about it in their own way.
“We have much larger numbers of citizens to take out. I have enormous sympathies with the British citizens. [who cited problems].”
Updated
Canada’s foreign minister, Mélanie Joly, said countries including France, Germany, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia had helped to evacuate about 100 Canadians from Sudan.
Joly said Canada was working to evacuate more civilians during a 72-hour ceasefire agreed by the factions, Al Jazeera reported.
The Canadian evacuees were from a group of 550 people who requested assistance, Joly told reporters in Ottawa.
There are a total of 1,700 Canadians in Sudan who are registered with the foreign ministry.
Updated
The first flight taking British civilians out of Sudan was carrying everyone that was at the airfield and eligible, Rishi Sunak said.
Asked whether a lack of clarity in the government response could lead to empty seats on planes, the prime minister said: “It’s exactly because we want to make sure that our evacuations are happening in an effective and safe manner that we decide how best to call people forward.
“That evolves depending on the situation on the ground. The first flight that left took everybody that was at the airfield and eligible.”
People were being contacted directly and through a general call, he said.
Sunak added that he could not guarantee the long-term safety of the air route being used given the volatility of the ceasefire, but other options were being considered.
Updated
Greece, France and Kenya evacuated citizens on Tuesday
Greece, France and Kenya are among the countries that have carried out evacuations of their citizens on Tuesday.
Updated
Rishi Sunak has defended the UK’s approach to removing British citizens from Sudan against criticism that the Foreign Office is failing those stuck in Khartoum.
He said: “I’m pleased that we were actually one of the first countries to safely evacuate our diplomats and our families.
“And it was right that we prioritised them because they were being targeted.
“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.”
UK PM says more than 1,000 people in Sudan contacted for evacuation
Sunak added there would be “many more” flights out of Sudan on Wednesday as citizens make their way to the airfield.
“We now have over 100 people on the ground in Sudan. The first flight has already left with British nationals, we’ll have more flights this evening and we’ll have many more into tomorrow,” the prime minister told broadcasters.
Sunak said more than 1,000 people had been contacted and many were making their way to the airfield.
Updated
The UK’s Africa minister, Andrew Mitchell, who met Rishi Sunak in the central London crisis hub, told him 200 people were working on the UK efforts day and night.
Updated
Sunak: There will be 'many more' flights evacuating British nationals
Rishi Sunak has said there will be “many more” flights evacuating British nationals from Sudan “into tomorrow”.
Updated
Rishi Sunak has said the next 24 hours are “absolutely critical” in the evacuation of British nationals from Sudan.
The prime minister thanked teams at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and said: “Your efforts are really, really helping, making a huge difference.
“Keep at it … The next 24 hours are absolutely critical.
“We can make a big push as we’re already doing and you can help us get everyone who wants to come home, home.”
Updated
Here is a gallery of images showing the evacuation effort so far.
Updated
Summary
The time is approaching 6pm in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, as a 72-hour ceasefire is under way and an international evacuation effort continues, with Britain’s first flight having departed bound for RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus.
Here is a round-up of today’s developments:
Britain’s first evacuation flight is on its way to Cyprus after a ceasefire between Sudan’s army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) backed by two warring generals in the country.
There are 120 British military personnel, including Royal Marines, on site at the Wadi Saeedna airfield, north of Khartoum. Border Force and Foreign Office officials have set up operations at the base.
The UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, said evacuations on C130 Hercules and A400M planes would take place for as long as is possible. Germany will fly its sixth extraction service on Tuesday night, rescuing a total of almost 500 people.
British passport holders have been told to go to Wadi Saeedna “as soon as possible”, although Wallace told MPs he expected difficulties processing those who arrived without proper documentation.
Wallace said two British military ships, RFA Cardigan Bay and HMS Lancaster, are being lined up for possible evacuations, and a team of British troops are understood to have flown into Port Sudan to check out options.
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 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.
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.
If you have been affected by the unfolding situation in Sudan and the evacuation flights and would like to speak to the Guardian about your experiences, you can do so here.
My colleague Nadeem Badshah will be taking you through any updates across the rest of Tuesday evening. Thank you for following.
Updated
First British evacuation flight leaves Sudan
The first British evacuation flight has departed the Wadi Saeedna airfield on the outskirts of Khartoum and is heading to the RAF Akrotiri base in Cyprus.
Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson said another two flights were expected to leave on Tuesday, according to Reuters.
It follows the last service earlier on Tuesday by Germany, whose forces are in control of the airbase. UK forces have the capacity to take over if needed, the government has said.
Sunak’s spokesperson added that the government was still examining alternative rescue routes including via Port Sudan, as indicated earlier by the defence secretary, Ben Wallace.
Updated
A British national in Sudan had said the government’s plans to evacuate people from the north-east African country are unclear and that more guidance is needed.
Nadir Omara, 56, a consultant psychiatrist who usually works in the city of Madani, south of the capital, had travelled to Khartoum to celebrate Eid with friends and family on 13 April, two days before fighting broke out, PA Media reports.
Omara moved to Sudan in late 2020 for work, while his wife, Azza, and two daughters remained at their home in Ipswich, Suffolk.
The government has launched an operation to help about 2,000 citizens flee the ongoing conflict after a 72-hour ceasefire was agreed by the warring factions. The Foreign Office told British nationals in Sudan to head to the airfield outside Khartoum “as soon as possible” on Tuesday.
Omara said: “You have to bear in mind that the communications are very intermittent (and) haphazard – sometimes they do work, sometimes they don’t.
“I have already sent an email to the local MP, James Cleverly [the foreign secretary] and Rishi Sunak [the prime minister] that we need more guidance.
“The numbers for the embassy or consulate services weren’t reachable, so we had to rely on watching the news and services here. That’s very difficult.
“I did get an email today [Tuesday] about the evacuation [but] there’s no clarity as to how that is going to be conducted, other than the priority is for the elderly and people with families.”
Updated
The British Red Cross has emphasised the need for medical equipment, food and water to be delivered to Sudan, where hundreds of people have been killed and thousands more injured.
In a statement, Sam Turner, the head of the charity’s east and southern African region, said the fighting had made an already difficult humanitarian situation in Sudan worse.
He said: “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
Last German evacuation flight to leave on Tuesday night
Germany will end its evacuation flights on Tuesday, its foreign ministry has reported.
In a statement, it said the service from Sudan to Jordan would be the last – but that German nationals would still be able to be picked up by other countries.
Germany has rescued about 490 people, a third of whom were its nationals, across five flights so far.
It will mean that Germany will relinquish control of the Wadi Saeedna airbase on the outskirts of Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, which would clear the path for British evacuation flights to begin, according to UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, earlier on Tuesday.
The German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, said: “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.
“Almost 500 people from 30 countries were flown out of Khartoum thanks to our support – that is a huge achievement. The fact that our citizens abroad can also rely on not being left to their own devices in an emergency is not a bureaucratic matter of course. It is the result of courage, teamwork and tireless dedication on the part of many hundreds of people involved in the German armed forces, the federal police and the Foreign Office.
“I would like to expressly mention the two employees and one employee of the Federal Foreign Office who flew to Khartoum for the evacuation on Sunday – their willingness to go into such a crisis situation voluntarily as civilians is impressive. We are also continuing to work on ways to safety for those Germans who are still in Sudan, be it with flights from partners, by land or by sea.”
Updated
British passport holders told to travel to airfield 'as soon as possible'
The UK Foreign Office has given new advice to British nationals in Sudan, telling them to go to the airfield on the outskirts of Khartoum “as soon as possible”.
Previously they had been told to make their way there only if they had been “called forward”.
In new instructions to those in the north-east African country, it said they should go to the Wadi Saeedna airfield to be processed. PA Media reported earlier that the first Hercules flight was full of British officials and military personnel to oversee the evacuation effort.
The advice said that only British passport holders and their immediate family members would be evacuated, with priority given to the more vulnerable.
The defence secretary, Ben Wallace, told a parliamentary committee on Tuesday afternoon that he believed problems may be found by people without any identification or documentation at all.
Sudan update: We are evacuating British passport holders and immediate family members with existing UK entry clearance.
— Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (@FCDOGovUK) April 25, 2023
🔗 https://t.co/1kt7BdOm2a pic.twitter.com/7fTmW8Z3VZ
Updated
Negotiations ongoing to agree a meeting between warring generals
Plans are under way 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.
Al Ahram newspaper quotes Orwa al-Sadeq, a member of the opposition Sudanese Umma party, as saying there were proposals for a meeting in Saudi Arabia – but they were waiting for agreement from both sides.
A spokesperson for the Forces of Freedom and Change, an alliance that removed Omar al-Bashir as president in the revolution in Sudan in 2019, confirmed that the negotiations were ongoing.
Shihab Ibrahim said: “The parties calling for this meeting have obtained preliminary approval, and the response from both sides will be given hopefully by Tuesday at the latest.”
Updated
Communications with UK nationals 'very patchy', says defence secretary
The UK’s defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has been speaking to a parliamentary committee about the evacuation effort.
He said 120 British military personnel were at the airfield near Khartoum that is being used for evacuation. Wallace told MPs that a reception team of Border Force and Foreign Office staff had been set up at the airfield, with staff moved from RAF Akrotiri to assist.
The airfield is currently being run by the German military, with the French previously assisting, and Wallace said the British may be in a position to take over when the German evacuation ends.
Communication with British nationals was “very patchy”, the committee heard.
Wallace went on to say that two Royal Navy ships, RFA Cardigan Bay and HMS Lancaster, were on call in the area and may go to Port Sudan if needed to help with further rescues.
He said the government was ready for the situation to become a humanitarian aid effort rather than that evacuation mission that is under way.
Updated
UN refugee agency warns of further displacement of people from Sudan into Chad and South Sudan
The UN refugee agency has said there could be further displacement of people from Sudan, 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, the UNHCR spokesperson Olga Sarrado said Tuesday.
The figures could rise, she cautioned. One projected figure from the UN has been as high as 270,000.
Sarrado did not have figures for the five other countries neighbouring Sudan, but UNHCR has cited unspecified numbers of people fleeing Sudan to Egypt.
“The fighting looks set to trigger further displacement both within and outside the country,” Associated Press reports that she told a UN briefing in Geneva.
The UNHCR is scaling up its operations. Marie-Helene Verney, the UNHCR’s chief in South Sudan, said from its capital, Juba, that “the planning figure that we have for the most likely scenario is 125,000 returns of South Sudanese refugees into South Sudan” and an additional 45,000 Sudanese refugees fleeing the fighting.
Updated
Sir William Patey, a former UK ambassador to Sudan, has defended the British operation, saying the challenges facing France and Italy were qualitatively different to those facing the UK, due to the numbers of people involved. Patey told the BBC’s World at One programme:
I do think some of the criticism is pretty misplaced. I can understand why people are angry and why they’re anxious and why they want news.
But I don’t think it’s been that slow. And I think at the end of the day, if the media and the individuals are being fair, they will look back and say actually they did a pretty good job if this evacuation delivers what we expect it to deliver.
Updated
PA has a quick snap to say that an RAF C-130 Hercules that has travelled back from Khartoum to Cyprus is understood to have been carrying an advance team, rather than being the first evacuation flight of the operation.
Updated
Airstrikes threaten three-day truce in Sudan amid warning of 'huge biological hazard'
Zeinab Mohammed Salih in Khartoum and Oliver Holmes have this roundup of the latest situation in Sudan:
Airstrikes and reports of renewed fighting have threatened a delicate three-day truce in Sudan, while a senior aid worker made an alarming warning of a “huge biological hazard” resulting from the armed seizure of a Khartoum laboratory containing deadly diseases.
A 72-hour ceasefire came into effect across the country just after midnight on Tuesday, intended to give Sudanese people respite from days of bloodshed and allow the wounded to reach already limited medical care. World powers also hope it will provide time for a massive international rescue mission to fly out evacuees.
Three previously attempted ceasefires have failed over just 11 days of fighting. So far, at least 459 people have been killed and more than 4,000 wounded, according to UN agencies.
On Tuesday morning, multiple airstrikes struck the city of Omdurman, a city across the Nile River from Khartoum, with a least one bomb hitting a civilian home.
“Sounds of gunfire, explosions and flying warplanes are still heard across Khartoum,” said Atiya Abdalla Atiya, a senior figure in the Sudan Doctors’ Syndicate, a group that monitors casualties. “They don’t respect ceasefires.”
The violence has pitted army units loyal to its military ruler, Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.
On Tuesday, the World Health Organization’s representative to Sudan, Nima Saeed Abid, told the media that local technicians could not access the National Public Health Laboratory. The centre holds samples of measles, cholera and polio pathogens and other hazardous materials, he said.
Fighters “kicked out all the technicians from the lab … which is completely under the control of one of the fighting parties as a military base,” said Abid. “There is a huge biological risk associated with the occupation of the central public health lab,” he added.
Read more from Zeinab Mohammed Salih in Khartoum and Oliver Holmes here: Airstrikes threaten three-day truce in Sudan
The Guardian’s defence and security editor Dan Sabbagh reports:
RAF planes have been flying into the airbase north of Khartoum and flight trackers showed that at least one was one its way back to the RAF Akrotiri airbase in Cyprus, which is being used as a staging post by the British military, before heading out to Sudan.
The MoD released pictures of Royal Marines and headquarters staff loading on to a Hercules transport earlier on Tuesday morning, which then undertook the four- to five-hour flight to Sudan to begin the evacuation process.
Updated
PA Media reports that the UK is considering other evacuation routes, as well as the airlift. It says two British military ships, RFA Cardigan Bay and HMS Lancaster, are being lined up for possible evacuations, and that a team of British troops are understood to have flown into Port Sudan to check out options.
Updated
The complexity of the evacuation mission is typified by this image posted overnight by the German ambassador to the UK, Miguel Berger. He pointed out that at that point about 400 Germans and nationals from more than 20 countries, including the UK, were being flown out of Khartoum, which he described as “excellent international cooperation”.
Updated
British nationals must travel to Khartoum airbase without military escort, says UK foreign secretary
The UK foreign secretary, James Cleverly, has said British nationals must make the risky journey to the airbase near Khartoum without a military escort and warned it is “impossible” to know how long the pause in the fighting will last.
Cleverly said the pause was fragile, after speaking directly or through intermediaries with faction leaders, as he called for them to allow British nationals to be evacuated.
“It is important to remember that ceasefires have been announced and have fallen apart in the past so the situation remains dangerous, volatile and unpredictable,” he told broadcasters, according to PA. He said:
It is impossible to predict how long the ceasefire will last. It is impossible to predict how long any other route to evacuation will remain open. We have said that we are unable to provide escorts from where British nationals are to the airhead, they will have to make their own way there – as indeed has been the case for the nationals of other countries.
Cleverly defended the government from suggestions that it should have carried out evacuations of citizens sooner, as European allies succeeded in doing.
“The circumstances for each individual nation are different. There are considerably more British nationals in Sudan than other countries have got,” he said.
Updated
James Gregory and Oliver Slow at the BBC have filed a report stating that the “ceasefire in Sudan appears to be holding, although there have been reports of new gunfire and shelling.”
It quotes Tagreed Abdin, who they say lives 7km (about 4 miles) from the centre of Khartoum, saying she could hear shelling from her home.
“The situation right now is that this morning there was shelling and gunfire. Obviously the ceasefire hasn’t taken” she told the BBC.
The report also cites Eiman ab Garga, a British-Sudanese gynaecologist who works in the UK. She been evacuated to Djibouti on a flight organised by France. She told BBC Radio 4’s World Tonight programme:
The country is dirty, there’s rubbish all over it. There’s sewage overflowing, it smells, so now we’re next going to have an outbreak of illness and disease, and there won’t be a hospital to go to there. We’re just looking at death and destruction and destitution.
Updated
The UK’s deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden, will chair a Cobra meeting on the evacuation of British nationals from Sudan, PA Media reports.
It will be the eighth meeting on the crisis in Sudan and British nationals.
The issue was discussed at the meeting of cabinet on Tuesday morning, with updates given by the prime minister, Rishi Sunak; the foreign secretary, James Cleverly; and the defence secretary, Ben Wallace.
Cleverly said Foreign Office, Home Office and Ministry of Defence staff were working together to tell British nationals about the plan to provide flights from Sudan.
He added that alongside this work the government was working to develop alternative options to provide nationals with routes out of the country.
Sunak’s spokesperson confirmed that those being evacuated by the RAF would be brought to Cyprus first, where onward travel would be arranged. One flight, a Hercules C130 plane, is currently over north Egypt as it travels to RAF Akrotiri, according to a tracking website.
The spokesperson added that flights would go on for “as long as possible”, “with consideration to the risk of both UK personnel and British nationals”.
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Have you or someone you know been affected by the clashes in Sudan as the rescue efforts get under way?
We would like to speak to UK nationals currently in Sudan, and those who have recently evacuated, about their situation. If you are a national of another country, including Sudan, who has been affected, please get in touch here.
If you are a UK national and would like to tell us about your experiences and your situation, you can find out how to do so below.
Ukraine said it had evacuated 138 people, including 87 of its own citizens, from Sudan to Egypt during the ongoing ceasefire.
“A total of 138 citizens were saved … all evacuees are safe in Egypt,” the main intelligence directorate of Ukraine’s defence ministry said on Telegram, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
This included 35 women and 12 children, according to Ukrainian authorities who organised the operation.
Ukraine said its own citizens, mostly people working in the aviation industry and their families, were “provided with visa and document support and expect a quick return to [Ukraine]”.
Citizens from Georgia and Peru were also among the rescued.
Updated
RSF claims Sudanese army has violated ceasefire and urges it to follow truce
The Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group (RSF) has claimed that the Sudanese army has breached the 72-hour ceasefire.
Gunfire in Khartoum and Omdurman was reported by news agencies on Tuesday despite the ceasefire. The RSF is led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, who was deputy head of the ruling council until it was dissolved by Sudan’s military ruler, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.
The RSF’s claims have not been independently verified.
Its statement said: “The Sudanese army has violated the ceasefire by continuing to attack Khartoum by planes, which is a clear breach of the ceasefire agreement. This confirms the existence of multiple decision-making centres within the coup armed forces and the remnants of the defunct regime.
“We urge the Sudanese army to respect the ceasefire and its conditions to alleviate the suffering of innocent civilians.
“We also call on the international community to intervene and put pressure on the Sudanese army to abide by the terms of the ceasefire. The breach of the ceasefire by the Sudanese army is undeniable evidence of their thirst for war and Sudanese bloodshed, which must come to an end. We urge for peaceful resolution to the conflict.”
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More on the “high risk” of a biological hazard, according to the UN (see 10.36am).
Speaking to reporters, Nima Saeed Abid said one of the groups had seized a laboratory that holds measles and cholera pathogens and other hazardous materials. He said technicians were unable to reach the lab to secure them.
“This is the main concern: no accessibility to the lab technicians to go to the lab and safely contain the biological material and substances available,” he said, declining to specify which side had seized the facility. Reports have suggested that the Rapid Support Force (RSF) is in control of it.
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Here’s some photographs taken of those fleeing the fighting in Sudan.
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The International Rescue Committee has raised concerns over 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 believes more people will arrive at the camp, which has grown by more than 10% since fighting broke out.
In a statement, Mohammed Mahdi, the IRC’s Sudan deputy director for programmes, said: “As intense conflict within Khartoum, Sudan continues, the International Rescue Committee is concerned about the welfare of approximately 3,000 people that have arrived in Tunaydbah refugee camp, Gedaref state in east Sudan. Tunaydbah refugee camp already hosts almost 28,000 refugees, mainly from Tigray in Ethiopia, and resources are already stretched thin.
“The IRC together with partners is working on identifying the exact location of people arriving from Khartoum to the camp. IRC will include displaced people in our ongoing health, nutrition and women empowerment activities. IRC will also provide them with basic items that will help meet some of their immediate needs. We anticipate more people arriving to east Sudan in the coming weeks.”
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WHO warns of biological hazard risk
The World Health Organization (WHO) representative in Sudan has said that there is a “high risk” of a biological hazard on Tuesday, after one of the sides in the conflict seized a laboratory.
No further information was given by Nima Saeed Abid, according to Reuters, although reports have alleged that the Rapid Support Force had taken control of a lab.
Abid said that at the latest count, at least 459 people had been killed in fighting and 4,072 injured.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said a temporary ceasefire in Sudan is a “potential lifesaver” for civilians who have been sheltering in their homes after the conflict broke out nearly two weeks ago.
There are concerns about access to food, clean water and medical care as fighting has taken place in the capital, Khartoum.
Patrick Youssef, the ICRC’s regional director for Africa, said: “Khartoum is a densely populated city of millions. When heavy explosive weapons are used, street corners become battlefields, and civilians pay the greatest price. Hundreds have been killed and thousands injured, a heart-breaking outcome of this violence.
“We welcome the reports of a ceasefire and urge the international community to help find a durable political solution to end the bloodshed. It’s clear that this ceasefire must be implemented up and down the chain of command and that it must hold for it to give a real respite to civilians suffering from the fighting.”
Hospitals are increasingly unable to care for patients as medical staff cannot get to work and supplies run out, the ICRC has reported. Violence in other parts of the country, such as in Darfur, has also led to civilian casualties and growing humanitarian needs.
The ICRC is urging the parties to respect their obligations to stop civilian casualties under international humanitarian law.
“The parties must take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian injuries and loss of life. Critical civilian infrastructure like hospitals and the energy network must also be protected. This is not optional. These are legal obligations,” Youssef said.
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Why violence has broken out in Sudan - explainer
If you need a bit more background information on the situation in Sudan, last week our video team produced this explainer.
The power struggle has its roots in the years before a 2019 uprising that ousted the dictatorial ruler Omar al-Bashir, who built up formidable security forces that he deliberately set against one another.
In the video Guardian journalist Zeinab Mohammed Salih explains the origins of the conflict, and what’s next for the east African country.
The UN humanitarian office has been forced to cut back on some of its activities in parts of Sudan due to intense fighting, a spokesperson confirmed on Tuesday.
“In areas where intense fighting has hampered our humanitarian operations, we have been forced to reduce our footprint,” Jens Laerke, spokesperson for United Nations humanitarian office (OCHA), said in a statement, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
“But we are committed to continue to deliver for the people of Sudan,” he added.
Updated
British rescue plane leaves Sudan for Cyprus
The British C130 Hercules RAF plane that had landed at an airfield outside Sudan’s capital Khartoum less than an hour ago has taken off in the last few minutes bound for RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus.
A flight tracker website shows the plane, registration RRR9909, leaving northbound. It can hold about 120 people and is projected to land at about 2.30pm.
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.
“We have officials from the SA embassy in Egypt to receive them & facilitate their entry into Egypt. SA government will pay for their flights back to SA,” spokesperson Clayson Monyela wrote on Twitter.
“There’s 12 more nationals that will leave Sudan today. With this, everyone we know of will be accounted for.”
Monyela said earlier this week that 77 South African nationals were stuck in Sudan.
Latest update re: Evacuation of SA🇿🇦 nationals in #Sudan.
— Clayson Monyela (@ClaysonMonyela) April 25, 2023
The two busses have safely arrived at the border with Egypt. We have officials from the SA Embassy in Egypt to receive them & facilitate their entry into Egypt. SA government will pay for their flights back to SA. The…
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.
About 50 Irish citizens and family members have been evacuated from Sudan so far with an estimated 100 remaining.
The Spanish authorities have also assisted in taking some Irish citizens to safety. Guérend said it represented “EU citizenship in action”.
Guérend said the French had taken responsibility for securing an airport in recent days to facilitate the airlifts – a task he said was due to be taken on by Germany on Tuesday.
Ireland does not have the capacity to mount its own airlift operations and has been reliant on fellow EU states for assistance in the evacuation operation.
The ambassador said it was “natural” that the French would assist other nations given its longstanding links in Djibouti.
“In a different place it may be Ireland helping or another EU member state, we really believe that’s the core of the EU and of EU citizenship and of EU solidarity,” he told RTÉ Radio one. “We find it in a way natural and at the core of what EU membership is.”
British rescue plane lands in Sudan - reports
A British C130 Hercules plane has landed at an airfield just outside the Sudanese capital Khartoum, according to Sky News reports.
Reporter Alistair Bunkall, who was speaking to presenter Kay Burley from RAF Akrotiri said he had been told it had landed shortly before 9.13am with another plane still in the air. “That won’t be enough by a long way to extract the 4,000 British nationals if they want to get out,” he added.
As our defence and security editor Dan Sabbagh reported earlier quoting an official, a C130 Hercules can hold about 120 people.
Updated
French soldier shot during evacuation effort 'no longer in life threatening condition'
The French soldier shot during the evacuation effort on Sunday is no longer in a critical condition, according to president Emmanuel Macron.
He made the announcement at the start of a defence council at the Élysée Palace, and went on to say that France had evacuated 538 people from Sudan. French citizens made up 209 of the total number of evacuees, Macron added, according to Agence France-Presse.
The French foreign ministry announced on Monday that it had closed its embassy in Khartoum “until further notice”.
The mission could therefore no longer serve as a rallying point for people trying to leave the country, it said.
Updated
The UK foreign secretary James Cleverly has been speaking to broadcaster Sky News on Tuesday morning about the evacuation from Sudan.
Cleverly said rescue efforts would continue for “as long as we can” amid the ceasefire that he welcomed which had allowed the evacuation airlift to take place. However he cautioned that previous ceasefires had been broken.
He said he had spoken to the leaders of both sides in Sudan to organise the evacuation. “It is impossible to know how long this opportunity will last and we are calling people forward in priority order based on their vulnerability,” he said.
Cleverly said the UK was unable to provide escorts to the military base outside Khartoum where the evacuation flights will leave from. He admitted to Sky News that the situation would remain risky for people trying to get to the airfield.
In response to a question comparing the evacuation to that from Kabul in 2021, he said the situation was “fundamentally different”. “We have established contact with a number of British nationals and we are talking directly with them, although we recognise the ability to maintain consistent communications is difficult,” he said.
Cleverly did not answer whether all of the people who Britain wanted to evacuate from Sudan would be able to be rescued. “It’s not possible for us to predict with any certainty at all the circumstances on the ground.”
Updated
Cyprus said on Tuesday it had activated a humanitarian rescue mechanism for the evacuation of third-country civilians through the island from Sudan.
“The Republic of Cyprus intends to offer facilities to friendly countries for the repatriation of their nationals through Cyprus,” Reuters reports the Cypriot foreign ministry said in a statement.
Cyprus has facilitated humanitarian evacuations before. Tens of thousands of people were evacuated from Lebanon through Cyprus in 2006 during an escalation of violence with Israel.
Dan Sabbagh, the Guardian’s defence and security editor, has this update on the type of aircraft being used.
The Ministry of Defence said RAF transport planes were on their way to the Wadi Seidna airfield north of Khartoum to begin picking up Britons. A rescue will involve A400M Atlas planes, with a passenger capacity of up to 200, and C130 Hercules with a capacity of around 120, an official said.
However, any airlift will be limited by the size of the airfield which the UK said yesterday can carry only two Atlas sized planes at a time, and it is likely to be shared with countries other than the UK while the ceasefire agreed overnight holds.
The Sky New Middle East correspondent Alistair Bunkall is near RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, and has said, given the flight times from the Mediterranean island to Sudan, he would expect the first planes evacuating British passport holders to arrive there mid-afternoon at the earliest. He told Sky News viewers:
We’ve seen one aircraft take off so far. It was an Airbus A400 M. So those who are familiar with it, it’s one of the larger transport aircraft, one of the newer transport aircraft in the RAF fleet. It was one of the aircraft or the type of aircraft used over the weekend to evacuate British diplomats from Sudan. And we understand that the UK will be using C130. Hercules as well so I would expect to see more flights take off from here as the morning wears on.
It’s around about a three-and-a-half-hour flight down to the Khartoum area. So I would expect that, if they are returning here, and that is yet to be confirmed, then we’re probably looking at the first returning flights late afternoon here, mid-afternoon your time.
But this is going to be a very complex operation partly because of the sheer number of people that they need to extract. We understand it’s around 4,000 British passport holders trapped in Sudan. Some of those, as I’m sure you know, will have decided to take matters into their own hands and make their way by road down to Port Sudan. But a lot are still stuck in Khartoum, and it won’t be simple on the ground when the aircraft land there.
Updated
Associated Press is carrying this update on the latest situation in Sudan, where people it has spoken to have suggested that the 72-hour ceasefire is not holding universally.
Samy Magdy reports the the Sudanese military, commanded by Gen Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the rival Rapid Support Forces, a paramilitary group led by Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, both said Tuesday they would observe the ceasefire. In separate announcements, they said Saudi Arabia played a role in the negotiations.
“This ceasefire aims to establish humanitarian corridors, allowing citizens and residents to access essential resources, healthcare, and safe zones, while also evacuating diplomatic missions,” the RSF said in a statement.
The army announcement used similar language, adding that it will abide by the truce “on the condition that the rebels commit to stopping all hostilities”.
But fighting continued, including in Omdurman, a city across the Nile River from Khartoum. Omdurman resident Amin Ishaq told AP there were clashes early on Tuesday around the state television headquarters and around military bases just outside Omdurman.
“They did not stop fighting,” he said. “They stop only when they run out of ammunition.”
“Sounds of gunfire, explosions and flying warplanes are still heard across Khartoum,” said Atiya Abdalla Atiya, secretary of the Doctors’ Syndicate. “They don’t respect ceasefires.”
Updated
Alicia Kearns, the chair of the UK parliament foreign affairs committee, has reiterated the Foreign Office warning that Britons should shelter in place until called to come forward for evacuation. She told viewers of Sky News in the UK that there was a risk the 72-hour ceasefire would not hold:
This is still incredibly complex. We have two warring factions. These are not well organised, well managed, well trained armed forces. You could have renegade factions within it. You will have individuals who will be high on the joy of looting who could commit further crimes.
And that is why British national need to stay where they are only come forward when they are contacted by the Foreign Office, because a plane is waiting for them and they really do have to move them safely.
Kearns also suggested that the UK government might investigate the use of sea routes in addition to an airlift. She said:
At this point they are going to continue to use the airstrip just north of Khartoum. However, we know that that airstrip has been degrading, it’s not high quality, and the Foreign Office did suggest that they may look at other routes depending on how things go forward.
And we know there are French ships and UK ships within the region. So they may just be waiting to bring those forward should the airlift either not be able to get enough people out at speed, or if there are problems that arise with that.
Updated
In a tweet, the Rapid Support Forces claimed Sudan Armed Forces were still flying aircraft in breach of the ceasefire terms, confirming in their eyes that SAF has more than one decision centre and is unable to enforce the ceasefire. This is the fourth ceasefire of the war.
Alicia Kearns, the Conservative MP for Rutland and Melton is the chair of the UK parliament’s foreign affairs select committee, and she has been doing the media round in the UK this morning.
She told Sky News she felt “enormous relief” at the news that the evacuation process was beginning, but cautioned to hold all those involved “in our hearts” because “as we all know the ceasefire did not hold on Saturday for more than three hours.”
With regard to how many British passport holders might be evacuated, she said “the numbers don’t necessarily add up” with trying to get around 4,000 people out in 72 hours. However she said:
We know that not everyone who has registered with the Foreign Office of those numbers actually wants to be evacuated.
So look, they’ve said they want to get passport holders out. They’re going to prioritise women, children, the vulnerable, those with medical needs. That is absolutely the right thing to do. But it is a race against time.
And we just have to hope that during this period of the ceasefire, the diplomatic work doesn’t stop. The goal now has to be what happens next. How do we make sure that this doesn’t transition back to conflict, but transition to some sort of formal peace talks or negotiation beyond that.
Rosa Prince in this morning’s London Playbook from Politico has this assessment of the political side of developments in the UK over the last few hours. She writes:
Pressure had been growing on the UK government to act, following the removal of embassy staff at the weekend and as other nations pressed on with their own extractions. Family members of some stranded Brits had complained they felt abandoned. The FCDO pushed back, saying there were more British nationals needing assistance than those from most other countries, and it was simply unsafe to move large numbers of people, including children and the elderly, without a cessation in the fighting.
A Foreign Office official said ambassador Giles Lever had been instrumental in helping to broker the ceasefire thanks to his personal connections to senior figures in both the government and RSF. Lever has taken a certain amount of heat since it emerged he was in the UK for the Easter holiday when the crisis broke out
Staff from the FCDO, MoD and Home Office have been making calls through the night to the thousands of Brits across Sudan who registered in the last few days that they need assistance to escape. It is not known how many military and other personnel are now on the ground but during the much smaller diplomatic extraction at the weekend, as many as 1,200 troops were on standby.
The official told Playbook those working on the evacuation were keen to avoid a scenario in which people panicked and ran for the planes. They will be told there is sufficient time to get everyone out, and alternative routes to the planes will be made available.
Analysis: planned airlift fraught with danger amid fragile truce
The Guardian’s diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour reports:
The planned airlift of British citizens is fraught with dangers, notably the fear that the 72-hour ceasefire will break down, meaning British nationals are travelling to the designated airfield while fighting has restarted. There have also been regular reports of robberies of foreigners during the fighting, requiring a degree of leadership from the two factions to keep troops under control.
There is also concern that British nationals once they know the airfield to which they are to travel will press ahead without waiting to be called, risking there is a rush for the planes. The prioritisation process in Afghanistan proved difficult partly because politicians at the Foreign Office struggled to stick to clear criteria and responded to lobbying by Downing Street or MPs acting in the wake of their constituent’s pleas.
It has also been made clear that Home Office staff will assess hard cases in which those arrive lacking the correct paperwork. Dual nationals will be permitted on the flights; non-citizen dependants will not be treated as a priority, risking families will be divided at least temporarily. The UK aid minister Andrew Mitchell has already told MPs that no one will be deported back to Sudan while the fighting is under way.
Updated
Sky News Middle East correspondent Alistair Bunkall is in Cyprus, where the British mission to evacuate diplomats and their families was launched from on Sunday. He has tweeted that an RAF A400M military transport aircraft appeared to set off for Sudan earlier.
SUDAN: UK has announced more evacuation flights are underway for British passport holders trapped in Sudan. Priority will be given to elderly and families. We just saw an A400M take off from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus: pic.twitter.com/tqnWnCf9J1
— Alistair Bunkall (@AliBunkallSKY) April 25, 2023
He said there is around a three and a half hour flight time between RAF Akrotiri and its destination.
Former joint operational commander of the British armed forces Ash Alexander-Cooper has been speaking to the media in the UK, and said that a 72-hour ceasefire, if it holds, is not a large amount of time to evacuate the number of people wanting to leave the country, and that “every minute and every hour counts”. He told viewers of Sky News:
If we’ve learned one thing from Afghanistan and that withdrawal – although the situations are different – is that every minute and every hour counts. We can’t be complacent and hope that the ceasefire lasts longer than 72 hours. We must plan that every hour is our last and do everything we can.
He also suggested that, while British nationals might be spread far and wide across Sudan, there would be coordination among the rescue attempts.
This is not a solely a British effort, you know. We work very closely in partnership with our allies, the US and others who have a bigger presence in the region. So I would imagine that there’s a lot of coordination going on between the Brits and all those other countries in the EU, the US and elsewhere, to ensure that if there’s capacity or options to help get people out, if there’s space, then we’ll be working very much hand in glove with them.
What are other countries planning for their own citizens?
Here is a roundup from Associated Press of some of the international efforts to evacuate citizens from Sudan as fighting has taken hold over recent days:
US: White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Monday that Washington has begun facilitating the overland departure of private US citizens who want to leave Sudan with the use of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets.
UK: Britain’s Africa minister, Andrew Mitchell, has said about 2,000 UK citizens in Sudan have registered with the embassy. The country this morning announced an evacuation would begin.
Egypt: Egypt’s state-run MENA news agency says the country is urging the more than 10,000 Egyptian citizens in Sudan to head to Port Sudan and Wadi Halfa in the north for evacuation. Buses carrying an undisclosed number of Egyptian citizens crossed into Egypt from the Arqin border crossing on Monday.
France: Officials say France has evacuated 491 people, among them citizens from 36 countries including Irish citizens. Others included three wounded individuals, the German ambassador and several other foreign ambassadors.
Germany: Four German military transport planes flew more than 400 people from Sudan to Jordan from where they’ll head to their home countries.
Canada: Canada’s foreign minister says Ottawa is working with “like-minded countries″ to help at least 1,600 citizens formally registered in Sudan flee the country.
Italy: Italian air force C-130 transport aircraft airlifted 200 people out of Khartoum airport Sunday.
Spain: Spain said it had evacuated approximately 172 people from Djibouti so far.
The Netherlands: A pair of Dutch air force C-130 Hercules flew from Sudan to Jordan Monday carrying an undisclosed number of Dutch and other evacuees.
Turkey: The Turkish government says it’s evacuating “hundreds” of its citizens by land to Ethiopia, from where they are scheduled to be flown to Istanbul.
South Africa: The South African government says at least 77 South African nationals, including embassy staff, are on their way out of the Sudanese capital.
Kenya: Kenya’s foreign ministry says 29 Kenyan students have crossed into Ethiopia and are en route to Nairobi. Another two aircraft are expected to ferry 300-400 Kenyans to Jeddah.
Updated
Here is a map of Sudan from our graphics team, which indicates the main routes by which people are fleeing the country.
The UK government’s Foreign Office has published more detail about how the evacuation of UK passport-holders from Sudan will be carried out. It continues to warn against travel to Sudan for security reasons, and cautions people specifically against joining independent conveys. Its advice reads:
The British Government will support the departure of British passport holders from Sudan from 25 April on a prioritised basis.
Seats will be allocated on a priority basis, starting with family groups with children and / or the elderly or individuals with documented medical conditions. We can only evacuate British passport holders and immediate family members (defined as a spouse/partner and children under 18 years old) with existing UK entry clearance. Travel within Sudan is conducted at your own risk and plans may change depending on the security situation.
We will contact those who are eligible for evacuation directly – please do not make your way to the airfield unless you are called.
If you have already registered your details, we will try to contact you and you do not need to contact us again. If you have not registered yet please use this link: register your presence in Sudan.
If you have registered with the FCDO and have now left Sudan please call us on this number +44 (0)190851666.
We are continuing to work up other options to assist British nationals wanting to leave Sudan, including at other points of exit.
British nationals may be aware of unverified reports of independent convoys planning to depart Khartoum towards Port Sudan. The British Embassy has no involvement with these convoys and any British nationals who attempt to travel in one would do so at their own risk.
British nationals will also have seen that we have now evacuated the embassy due to the specific threat to diplomats. We will no longer be able to provide in-person or in-country consular support.
Updated
Here are the tweets from UK government officials announcing the move. Foreign secretary James Cleverly said:
The UK government is coordinating an evacuation of British nationals from Sudan. We have started contacting nationals directly and providing routes for departure out of the country.
The UK government is coordinating an evacuation of British nationals from Sudan.
— James Cleverly🇬🇧 (@JamesCleverly) April 25, 2023
We have started contacting nationals directly and providing routes for departure out of the country.https://t.co/71LU7TgtCC
The British prime minister also tweeted. Rishi Sunak said:
The Government has begun a large-scale evacuation of British passport holders from Sudan on RAF flights. Priority will be given to the most vulnerable, including families with children and the elderly.
I pay tribute to the British Armed Forces, diplomats and Border Force staff carrying out this complex operation. The UK will continue to work to end the bloodshed in Sudan and support a democratic government.
The Government has begun a large-scale evacuation of British passport holders from Sudan on RAF flights. Priority will be given to the most vulnerable, including families with children and the elderly.
— Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) April 25, 2023
I pay tribute to the British Armed Forces, diplomats and Border Force staff…
UK government 'coordinating an evacuation of British nationals from Sudan'
The UK government has announced it is “coordinating an evacuation of British nationals from Sudan”, as a US-brokered ceasefire between the warring Sudanese armed forces and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has officially started in Sudan, where hundreds have been killed and thousands have fled since the fighting began.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak has said “The Government has begun a large-scale evacuation of British passport holders from Sudan on RAF flights. Priority will be given to the most vulnerable, including families with children and the elderly.”
The British Foreign Office said British nationals should not make their way to the airfield unless they are called, and warned the situation remained volatile, meaning the ability to conduct evacuations could change at short notice.
Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) had said the US and Saudi Arabia mediated the truce. US secretary of state Antony Blinken had announced the agreement first and said it followed two days of intense negotiations. But the two sides have not abided by several previous temporary truce deals.
Blinken said the US would coordinate with regional, international and Sudanese civilian interests to create a committee that would oversee work on a permanent ceasefire and humanitarian arrangements.
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