In Sudan, de facto President and Army Commander-in-Chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has approved the evacuation of citizens and diplomatic officials from the embattled country. An army spokesman said in a statement on Saturday that the United States, Britain, France and China would begin evacuating the capital Khartoum using military transport planes “in the coming hours”. Al-Burhan has therefore promised to “facilitate and guarantee” the evacuation and to provide the countries “with the necessary support to ensure this”.
A Saudi Arabian delegation has already been evacuated from the eastern city of Port Sudan, the spokesman said. A Jordanian delegation should also be flown out of Port Sudan later on Saturday.
The arms are in control of all airports in the country except those in Khartoum and the city of Njala in the South Dafur region, Al-Burhan told Saudi television Al-Arabia live by phone. He remains in control of the army and will only let his rival and former deputy Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, the leader of the RSF, escape “in a coffin,” Al-Burhan said.
Since last Saturday, the army of the north-east African country has been fighting for power against the once-allied paramilitary unit Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The airport in Khartoum has been at the center of hostilities since the beginning of the conflict and was therefore inaccessible. Diplomats have been trying for days to find a resilient ceasefire for the evacuation.
The US embassy in Khartoum said on Saturday that ongoing fighting and the closure of the airport in the capital make it impossible to evacuate private US citizens at this time. The embassy continues to closely monitor the situation in Khartoum and the surrounding areas, it said in a statement. Aside from skirmishes, there are recent reports of raids, home invasions and looting.
The embassy also received “incomplete information” about convoys traveling from Khartoum to Port Sudan, it said. The embassy is not able to support convoys; According to the notification, traveling with you is therefore at your own risk.
Meanwhile, according to the Defense Ministry, the Bundeswehr is making preparations for a new attempt to evacuate German citizens. On Wednesday, an attempt at a diplomatic evacuation using Luftwaffe aircraft, but without any major deployment of soldiers, was aborted.
See the photo gallery from our archive: Sudan was also a topic at the World Press Photo Awards 2020.
