The deadline for British nationals to reach the evacuation airfield in Sudan has passed as the government prepares to cease flights out of the country within hours.
The deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden, will chair a Cobra meeting on Saturday afternoon to discuss the security situation in Khartoum in advance of the final flight taking off at 6pm UK time.
The government said on Friday that British nationals trapped in Sudan had until midday on Saturday local time to get on a flight before they stop.
Dowden had previously said there had been a “significant decline in British nationals coming forward”, meaning it was time to end the operation.
About 1,573 people have been evacuated from the Wadi Saeedna site near the capital on 13 flights, but thousands more British citizens may remain.
The BBC reported that all NHS doctors were now eligible to catch flights out of the country after a U-turn by the government, which initially said evacuation was only open to UK passport holders and their immediate families.
It comes after a doctors’ union called for NHS medics without UK passports to be included in the airlifts.
The BBC said the Department of Health and Social Care had sent a message to NHS doctors in Sudan on Friday night, telling them to go to to the airfield for evacuation. Wadi Seidna, a military base with a rough airstrip, is about 15 miles (24km) north of Khartoum.
The staff who have leave to remain in the UK were told to bring dependents and proof of NHS employment.
The British Medical Association had earlier urged the foreign secretary, James Cleverly, to allow the evacuation of NHS medics who were being prevented from joining the British effort because they did not have UK passports.
Dr Abdulrahman Babiker, a Sudanese-born registrar at Manchester Royal Infirmary, told Newsnight he was prevented from flying back to the UK after arriving at Wadi Seidna.
He said he had worked in the UK throughout the Covid crisis and felt “totally betrayed” by the ban on holders of work visas, which had continued all week despite repeated lobbying efforts from medical groups and unions.
The Sudanese Junior Doctors Association welcomed the move to lift the ban. It said: “We will continue to campaign for the safe return of our NHS colleagues from Sudan. There are some who are in, or near, Port Sudan with no safe means to reach the airfield as it is hours away, and others who remain in the capital unable to reach points of exit.”
Doctors and nurses from around the world work in the NHS, including 1,253 from Sudan, according to figures collected by the House of Commons library. Several had travelled to Sudan during Ramadan, which ended just over a week ago.
After the decision to end evacuation flights on Saturday, the shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, urged the government not to turn away British residents without passports, including NHS doctors reportedly trapped in the conflict zone.
Dowden told the BBC: “We are in touch with and engaging rapidly with the Sudanese Doctors’ Association to see what further support we can provide for them.”
The scramble for the airfield comes amid a tense security situation. Airstrikes and shelling were reported across Khartoum on Saturday morning despite a ceasefire led by the regional Intergovernmental Government Authority on Development (IGAD).
A number of Qur’anic school pupils were injured on Friday evening as a result of an airstrike on Omdurman East, residents in the area said.
Akram Ahmed, from Wad-Nwabwai, close to the el-Said Abdulrahman mosque where the airstrike took place said: “It was strong sound of airstrike this morning, made people wake up and run, but last night a fragment from an anti-aircraft hit the mosque to injure two pupils, now they took them out and emptied the boarding Qur’anic school.”
Khartoum residents near the military headquarters and the international airport reported hearing clashes until 3am on Saturday.
Agencies contributed to this report
