The armed forces of the United States and the United Kingdom have helped their embassy staff leave Sudan while other countries rushed to get their citizens to safety as rival military factions battled in the capital Khartoum.
The eruption of fighting eight days ago between the army and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group has triggered a humanitarian crisis, killed 420 people and trapped millions of Sudanese without access to basic services.
As people attempted to flee the chaos, countries began landing planes and organising convoys in Khartoum to pull out their citizens.
The warring sides accused each other of attacking a French convoy, both saying one French person was wounded.
A French diplomatic source said a French plane carrying about a hundred people including other citizens had taken off and was due to land in Djibouti, and a second plane with a similar number was due to take off shortly.
The risks were also evident in army accusations that the RSF looted a Qatari convoy heading to Port Sudan.
In separate incidents, an Iraqi citizen was killed during clashes and Egypt said one of its diplomats had been wounded.
The Sudanese army said it worked with the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and France on evacuation operations at Wadi Sedna, an air base north of Khartoum.
Canada had also extracted its diplomats and was trying to support its local staff, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said.
Egypt, India, Nigeria and Libya also said they were working to bring home their people.
Pope Francis appealed for an end to the violence during his Sunday midday prayer in Rome.
The fighting broke out in Khartoum, along with its adjoining sister cities of Omdurman and Bahri, and other parts of the country on April 15, four years after long-ruling autocrat Omar al-Bashir was toppled during a popular uprising.
The army and RSF jointly staged a coup in 2021 but fell out during negotiations over a plan to form a civilian government and integrate the RSF into the armed forces.
US officials said special forces using aircraft including MH-47 Chinook helicopters swept into Sudan’s battle-stricken capital on Saturday from a US base in Djibouti, spending just one hour on the ground to bring out fewer than 100 people.
“We did not take any small-arms fire on the way in and were able to get in and out without issue,” Lieutenant General Douglas Sims, the director of operations at the military’s Joint Staff, said.
Sudan’s sudden collapse into warfare has dashed plans to restore civilian rule, brought an already impoverished country to the brink of humanitarian disaster and threatened a wider conflict that could draw in outside powers.
Beyond Khartoum, reports of the worst violence have come from Darfur, a western region bordering Chad that suffered a conflict that escalated from 2003 leaving 300,000 people dead and 2.7 million displaced.
The army under Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the RSF, headed by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, have failed to observe ceasefires agreed almost daily, including a three-day truce for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which began on Friday.
For the first time since the start of the fighting, a video was posted that briefly showed Hemedti in battle dress in the passenger seat of a pick-up truck, surrounded by cheering troops, near Khartoum’s presidential palace.
Reuters was able to confirm the location but was not able to independently verify the date the video was filmed.
Burhan said on Monday that he was based at the army headquarters in central Khartoum, about 2km from the palace.
Battles have continued around the army’s HQ and the airport, which has been closed by the clashes, and over the past two days in Bahri, where the army has used troops on the ground as well as air strikes to try to push back the RSF.
The RSF said on Sunday that its forces were targeted by air strikes in Bahri’s Kafouri district and that dozens were “killed and injured”.
