Britons trying to flee Sudan’s civil war were today told to “move now” in a race against time as the Foreign Secretary warned that evacuation flights might become too dangerous after Thursday night.
James Cleverly said there was no guarantee that the 72-hour ceasefire agreed between the warring parties in Khartoum will be extended once it expires at midnight in the Sudanese capital.
He said that meant it was impossible for him to guarantee that evacuation flights — which have carried more than 500 Britons and some foreign nationals to safety — would be able to continue.
“If you are planning to move, move now,” Mr Cleverly said on Thursday. “We cannot predict what will happen when that ceasefire ends.
“But what we do know is that it will be much, much harder, so what we are saying to British nationals is if you are hesitant, if you are weighing up your options, our strong advice is to go while the ceasefire is up and running.” He added: “There are planes, there is capacity, we are able to lift you out. I’m not able to make those same assurances once the ceasefire has ended. It’s really, really difficult to predict what might happen over the next few days. Now is the time to move.”
Mr Cleverly added: “We are already seeing there has been sporadic re-escalation of violence in Khartoum. There is no guarantee that this ceasefire will make it through to the scheduled endpoint and there is definitely no guarantee that it can be extended, though of course the UK and our international partners are pushing to achieve that.
“We have to understand that this is an active war zone, that providing guarantees, providing certainties is not possible for anyone.”
He said it was not possible to provide protected convoys from Khartoum to help Britons reach the Wadi Seidna air base used for the evacuation flights, pointing out that a coach organised for Turkish nationals had been fired on and that safe routes did not exist.
He also rejected criticism that the 536 Britons airlifted out so far was a lower total than those of countries such as France, Germany, Pakistan and China.
He said one reason was that Britons tended to be scattered around Khartoum with some having Sudanese wives and children, which might alter their willingness to leave, whereas nationals of some other countries lived more closely together in “expat pods” which made it easier to organise their evacuation. Mr Cleverly was also questioned about claims from Germany that a British evacuation flight used to airlift diplomats had landed in Sudan without clearance from the Sudanese army and caused delays to the efforts of other nations to fly their citizens out.
The Ministry of Defence has already dismissed the allegation as “complete nonsense”.
The war in Sudan is being fought between the Sudanese army commanded by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and paramilitary forces led by his rival General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.
The fighting erupted in mid-April and has so far led to the deaths of at least 512 people, while turning residential areas into war zones.
More than 2,000 British nationals in Sudan have registered with the Foreign Office under evacuation plans.
But only British passport holders and their immediate family who have existing clearance to enter the UK are currently authorised for evacuation, despite calls by the Conservative chairman of the Commons foreign affairs committee Alicia Kearns for elderly dependants to be made eligible for the airlift.
She told the BBC: “In the same way we treat children who are dependent on their parents, we should respect that some elderly people are dependent on their children.”
