UK finds itself at back of the queue in Sudan evacuation

British nationals, who have been evacuated from Sudan, arrive in Cyprus. Photograph: Yiannis Kourtoglou/Reuters

By the time Britain’s first civilian evacuation flight had taken off from a rough airfield north of Khartoum on Tuesday afternoon, other European nations were highlighting their successes in evacuating hundreds of their citizens from Sudan.

Britain’s military may have been the first to use the Wadi Seidna base on Sunday afternoon, with permission of Sudan’s embattled government, to evacuate two dozen diplomatic staff, but the UK then passed on control of the airport to Germany.