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25-04-2023
KHARTOUM: Foreign nations are rushing to get their citizens out of Sudan as rival military faction’s battle in the capital Khartoum where millions of residents are trapped inside their homes, many running low on water and food.
The eruption of fighting on April 15 between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group has triggered a humanitarian crisis, killed at least 420 people and left behind charred tanks, gutted buildings and shops that have been looted and torched.
As people attempted to flee the chaos over the weekend, foreign governments began landing aircraft and organizing convoys in Khartoum to pull out their nationals.
The United States said Special Forces using MH-47 Chinook helicopters swept into Sudan’s battle-stricken capital from a US base in Djibouti, spending just one hour on the ground to bring out fewer than 100 people.
United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Twitter on Sunday that members of his country’s armed forces had completed a “complex and rapid evacuation of British diplomats and their families from Sudan”.
Germany and France announced Sunday that they had begun evacuating their nationals and those from other countries. Other European countries, including Italy, the Netherlands and Greece, also said they were planning rescue efforts.
A French plane carrying about 100 people of multiple nationalities “landed in Djibouti”, according to French President Emmanuel Macron, with a second flight of another 100 people expected to leave Sunday evening.
Long convoys of UN vehicles and buses were seen leaving Khartoum heading east to Port Sudan on the Red Sea, 
850km (530 miles) away by road, carrying “citizens from all over the world”, according to one Sierra Leonean evacuee.
Turkey began rescue operations at dawn Sunday via road from the southern city of Wad Madani, but the effort was postponed from one site in Khartoum after explosions near a mosque designated as the assembly area, the embassy said on Twitter.
An Italian air force C-130 that left Khartoum with evacuees landed Sunday night at an air base in Djibouti, the country’s Defence Ministry said. Another plane, carrying Italy’s ambassador and military personnel involved in the evacuation, was expected in Djibouti later in the night.
About 100 people were flown out of Khartoum by Spanish military aircraft more than 30 Spaniards and the rest from Portugal, Italy, Poland, Ireland, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia and Argentina, the foreign ministry said. (Int’l News Desk)
