The Bundeswehr began a mission to evacuate German citizens in Sudan on Sunday. According to information from the German Press Agency, the Air Force flew to the fighting-torn country with military transporters for the rescue mission. The federal government and other Western countries have been preparing a military-backed rescue operation for days. For this purpose, the Bundeswehr transferred several hundred paratroopers with weapons and material from Germany to Jordan.
According to the current status, it is all about the rescue of a low three-digit number of German citizens, but they are more than 150, as a spokesman for the Federal Foreign Office explained on Friday. You contact people regularly, but the problems are increasing day by day. In the capital Khartoum, the supply situation has developed dramatically since the fighting began. There is a lack of water and food, and power cuts are increasingly impeding communication.
A few days ago, the Bundeswehr made preparations for a new attempt to evacuate German citizens and other people to be protected. A spokesman for the Ministry of Defense said in Berlin on Friday: “The priority is to protect our citizens in Sudan.” He did not give details of the scope, personnel and material of possible evacuation forces.
Heavy fighting broke out in Sudan a week ago between the country’s two most powerful generals and their units. The two men have led the country in northeast Africa with around 46 million inhabitants since two joint military coups in 2019 and 2021. De facto President Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who is also the commander-in-chief of the army, is fighting with the military against his deputy Mohammed Hamdan Daglo , the leader of the powerful paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Actually, the RSF should have been subordinate to the army and power in the country should have been returned to a civilian government.
The airport in the capital Khartoum has been at the center of hostilities since the outbreak of violence. International diplomats have repeatedly tried to achieve a resilient ceasefire. On Wednesday, an attempt at a diplomatic evacuation using aircraft from the Air Force, but without any major deployment of soldiers, was canceled because the security situation in Khartoum was considered too dangerous. A crisis team meets daily in Berlin.
