That’s the end of our coverage for today. You can read the latest report on the conflict here:
A summary of today's developments
Sudan’s army has agreed to extend the truce for 72 hours, according to a statement. Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) also agreed to support the new ceasefire in a statement, according to Reuters, after diplomatic efforts by neighbouring countries as well as the US, UK and the United Nations. The truce between the two warring factions was due to expire at midnight local time (11pm UK time). But the previous truce did not stop the fighting between the two sides, according to the Associated Press.
About 16,000 people have crossed the border from Sudan into Egypt including 14,000 Sudanese citizens, according to a statement from the Egyptian foreign ministry on Thursday.
AFP reports that at least 512 people have been killed and 4,193 wounded in the fighting in Sudan, according to health ministry figures, although the real death toll is likely much higher.
Britain’s ambassador in Sudan is speaking to the warring parties in the country to urge them to extend a 72-hour ceasefire that is due to expire at midnight local time tonight.
Fighting intensified in Sudan’s province of Darfur during the fragile three-day truce, killing an estimated dozens of people, residents said Thursday. Associated Press reports that the new clashes targeted civilians in the city of Genena.
Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which support the former warlord Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, claims it has repelled an attack in the Kafori area. They say the attackers suffered significant losses. The incident has not been verified.
A second UK-bound charter plane carrying an estimated 250 evacuees has just left Larnaca, Helena Smith reports. “We are trying to line up charters for as soon as possible after the RAF transporters come in,” a source said. American and Australian citizens have also been among passengers on the rescue flights. More than 750 British nationals have so far reached Cyprus on rescue flights.
James Cleverly, the UK’s foreign secretary, has made a direct appeal to the heads of the warring factions as he called for the bloodshed to end. “If they aspire to be the leader of Sudan, demonstrating a willingness to protect the people of Sudan would be a very important starting point,’” said Cleverly.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has called on countries to shift their focus from evacuees to those who remain in Sudan, and said that an urgent frontline funding surge is needed for both Sudan and Chad.
China has deployed its navy to rescue citizens from Sudan, the defence ministry in Beijing said on Thursday.
Canada conducted its first evacuation operation in Sudan on Thursday, airlifting over 100 hundred people including Canadians and other nationals on two flights, senior government officials said.
About 180 Canadians were evacuated from the region earlier with the help of other countries, and the federal government had been working to set up its own operation to extract civilians.
“I can confirm that a first Canadian evacuation flight from Sudan has taken place using an RCAF (Royal Canadian Air Force) CC-130 Hercules aircraft,” defence minister Anita Anand said at a news conference.
The first flight carried about 45 people from countries including Canada, the US and Japan, while a second flight a few hours later had 73 people onboard, according to the Canadian foreign ministry.
Updated
The UK’s foreign secretary, James Cleverly, urged all UK nationals wishing to flee Sudan to come forward “as quickly as possible” despite a 72-hour extension to the ceasefire being agreed.
He said: “The ceasefire in Sudan has just been extended. The UK calls for its full implementation by the generals.
“British evacuation flights are ongoing. I urge all British nationals wishing to leave to proceed to the airport as quickly as possible to ensure their safety.”
Updated
Britain and allies welcome extension to ceasefire
Britain has welcomed the 72-hour extension to the ceasefire agreed in Sudan.
In a joint statement issued by the UK and allies including the United States and Saudi Arabia, the countries said they “welcome the announcement by the Sudanese Armed Forces and Rapid Support Forces to extend the current ceasefire for an additional 72 hours and call for its full implementation”.
“We also welcome their readiness to engage in dialogue towards establishing a more durable cessation of hostilities and ensuring unimpeded humanitarian access.”
The RSF said said the proposal for the new truce which it agreed was from two diplomatic groupings that include the US, the UK, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Norway.
The White House said it is deeply concerned by the increase in ceasefire violations in Sudan, Reuters reports.
The existing truce, which was to expire at midnight Thursday, has not stopped the fighting between the two sides, Associated Press notes. However, it created enough of a lull for tens of thousands of Sudanese to flee to safer areas and for foreign nations to evacuate hundreds of their citizens by land and sea.
Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have also agreed to support a further 72-hour ceasefire in a statement, according to Reuters. The ceasefire was due to expire at midnight. The Sudanese army earlier agreed to the extension of the truce.
Updated
The situation in Sudan could worsen at any moment and Americans should leave within the next 24 to 48 hours, the White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre has said.
Jean-Pierre added the administration was concerned by ceasefire violations in Sudan and the US state department had deployed initial consular staff and that the situation was unlikely to improve.
Updated
The Pentagon has said only a relatively small number of Americans are seeking to leave Sudan at the moment and international flights are still departing the country.
“We’re working very closely with the state department to identify the number of Americans who want to leave Sudan,” said Brig Gen Patrick Ryder.
“As of right now, the indications that we have is that those numbers are relatively small. However, we do recognise that that could change quickly.”
Updated
A British-Sudanese man has said he feels “let down” by the UK government after he was advised to contact the British embassy for “urgent help”, despite it being empty.
Mohammed Mustapha, 55, a minicab driver and chauffeur from London, has been sheltering in Omdurman since fighting broke out in Sudan between the military and RSF militia troops on 15 April.
He registered his presence in Sudan with the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) on 23 April and attempted to contact the British embassy in Khartoum using the emergency number listed on the government’s website.
At the time, the government website stated: “British people in Sudan who need immediate help should call +249 (0)156 775500.”
However, the evacuation of diplomatic staff from the British embassy – which took place over the weekend of April – was already under way, and Mustapha’s calls for help went unanswered. He said he had called the British embassy at least nine times since 20 April but ha not received a response.
A UK government spokesperson said: “British nationals in Sudan continue to be our utmost priority and those registered with us have been sent regular updates by text and email.
“Our travel advice is also updated regularly, and is clear that British nationals should travel to Wadi Saeedna airfield to be processed for flights. We urge everyone to continue to follow our travel advice.”
Updated
Though the fighting has been focused in Khartoum, where RSF fighters have embedded themselves in residential areas, it has also spread to the western province of Darfur, where conflict has simmered ever since civil war erupted there two decades ago, Reuters reports.
The Darfur Bar Association, a rights group, said at least 52 people had died in attacks by well-armed “militias” on residential neighbourhoods in the town of El Geneina, as well as its main hospital, main market, government buildings and several shelters for internally displaced people.
The conflict has also limited food distribution in the vast nation, Africa’s third largest, where a third of the 46 million people were already reliant on humanitarian aid.
The senior UN aid official in Sudan, Abdou Dieng, said “very little can be done” in terms of humanitarian assistance.
“We’re extremely worried about food supply,” Dieng told told reporters.
“Our aim is to go back as quick as possible to Khartoum if the situation allows it.”
Updated
A man whose father fled Sudan on an evacuation flight has spoken of his relief after the pair were reunited at Stansted airport following “a constant rush of bad news”.
Ahmed Babikir, a British-Sudanese start-up founder from Kingston upon Thames, south-west London, picked up 63-year-old Sharief on Wednesday and described his father’s return to their family home in the UK as a “massive relief” – but added he still fears for the safety of other family members who have refused to leave Sudan.
“I think it was worrying being on the outside but, it’s just a massive, massive relief,” the 28-year-old told the PA news agency.
“Right now, my dad is here in our family home. To be honest, no one’s thought ahead more than that, I think there’s a sense of, let’s make sure everyone’s safe first and then we think about the next steps.”
Sharief Babikir, who was born in Sudan but moved to the UK as a student in the early 1990s, boarded a chartered flight from Khartoum to Stansted, although his son said he had to use a flight tracker to find out which gate his father would arrive at.
Updated
Sudan's army agrees to extend truce for 72 hours
Sudan’s army has agreed to extend the truce for 72 hours, according to a statement.
The deal, mediated by the US and Saudi Arabia, will see the new truce start at midnight on Friday.
The truce between the two warring factions was due to expire at midnight local time (11pm UK time).
Updated
Terrifying, crazy, desperate, relieved. These were the words that instantly came to mind as British citizens caught in the crosshairs of the conflict engulfing Sudan described their elation at being brought to safety during a fragile 72-hour truce.
In Cyprus, on the first leg of their journey back home, the evacuees spoke of anger but also hope as they related the turmoil many had unwittingly been plunged into when war erupted in the country.
“What I saw there was crazy, terrifying,” said Sami Elhaj as he prepared to board a Stansted-bound charter plane at Larnaca airport with hundreds of other evacuees. “You never expect this sort of thing to happen to you.”
A British teacher who was forced to flee Sudan amid the outbreak of fighting has told of her shock and fear as she made her way to Egypt.
Zoe Salim, a former head of languages in a London school, was visiting Khartoum with her husband and two children for Ramadan.
She has visited Sudan regularly over the past eight years, and was in the country during the coup in 2019, but nothing could have prepared her for the rapid escalation of violence.
“When we came there was tension. They were slowly increasing security checkpoints on the street, especially at night. Normally they never stop and check women driving, but they were even checking female drivers,” Salim said. “There was nothing to say that this was going to happen. The night before, I was with my sister-in-law and our friends, playing this game called sequence that we play a lot during Ramadan. When we got home at three o’clock in the morning, it was normal.”
Updated
Amnesty UK said it was in shock at the UK government’s “complete lack of concern” for Sudanese nationals at risk in their country.
Sacha Deshmukh, Amnesty International UK’s chief executive, said:“On top of growing reports about the chaotic and unacceptably slow nature of the UK evacuation effort, we are shocked at the complete lack of concern for the fate of at-risk Sudanese nationals shown by James Cleverly and other ministers.
“Yesterday, Suella Braverman was falsely suggesting that the UNHCR would be able to process refugee claims from Sudanese people hoping to escape the violence.
“The government’s shameful Rwanda scheme and its draconian migration bill are already undermining the entire international refugee protection system, and the government’s response to the Sudan crisis has so far only underlined the UK’s growing reputation for small-minded selfishness on refugee issues.
“The UK should be working with the UNHCR and other nations to properly facilitate life-saving refugee assistance efforts in Sudan, including offering to host some of those at most risk.”
Updated
Nearly 900 people now evacuated from Sudan on UK flights
The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has said 897 people have now been evacuated from Sudan on eight UK flights as of 4pm on Thursday with further flights to come.
Sudan update:
— Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (@FCDOGovUK) April 27, 2023
897 people have now been evacuated from Sudan on 8 UK flights as of 4pm today, with further flights to come. pic.twitter.com/10SbhDTwwe
Updated
The British ambassador to Sudan, Giles Lever, has been relocated from London to Ethiopia to lead diplomatic efforts to end the fighting in Sudan, the UK’s Foreign O Office has said.
Lever, who was not in Sudan when the violence broke out, had been working in the crisis centre in London.
“Basing our ambassador in Addis Ababa allows for direct coordination with the African Union, which is based in the Ethiopian capital and is playing a key role in resolving the crisis in Sudan,” the Foreign Office said.
Updated
The former British ambassador to the US Kim Darroch believes Britain has been “a little behind” other allies in the evacuation of citizens from Sudan.
He told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme: “It looks as if we were maybe 12 to 24 hours behind one or two others, particularly the Americans and to an extent the French. There may be perfectly logical reasons for that, the Americans may have had assets in the region that we didn’t have, the French have a base in Djibouti.
“But yes on the surface it looks as if we were a little behind.”
Darroch described the UK as being “somewhere in the middle of the pack” rather than being the last to act.
Updated
Prince Khalid bin Bandar Al Saud, Saudi ambassador to the UK, has told Sky News that the country has taken in just over 2,700 foreign nationals from Sudan from 76 countries including British nationals.
Updated
Until gunfire broke out on the streets of El Fasher this month, the state capital of North Darfur had several main hospitals. There was the big teaching hospital, the Saudi hospital, a paediatric hospital and the South hospital, a modest 35-bed facility with big ambitions and a specific remit: to help bring down the high numbers of local women dying in pregnancy and childbirth.
Now, almost two weeks into the conflict between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), two weeks of bloodshed that has seen terror return to a region once synonymous with human suffering, those options have narrowed.
“In El Fasher town the only functional hospital now is the South hospital … The three main other hospitals are all down,” said Dr Mohammed Musoke, the deputy programme manager for Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) for Sudan.
Updated
Summary
About 16,000 people have crossed the border from Sudan into Egypt including 14,000 Sudanese citizens, according to a statement from the Egyptian foreign ministry on Thursday.
AFP reports that at least 512 people have been killed and 4,193 wounded in the fighting in Sudan, according to health ministry figures, although the real death toll is likely much higher.
Britain’s ambassador in Sudan is speaking to the warring parties in the country to urge them to extend a 72-hour ceasefire that is due to expire at midnight local time tonight.
Fighting intensified in Sudan’s province of Darfur during the fragile three-day truce, killing an estimated dozens of people, residents said Thursday. Associated Press reports that the new clashes targeted civilians in the city of Genena.
Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which support the former warlord Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, claims it has repelled an attack in the Kafori area. They say the attackers suffered significant losses. The incident has not been verified.
A second UK-bound charter plane carrying an estimated 250 evacuees has just left Larnaca, Helena Smith reports. “We are trying to line up charters for as soon as possible after the RAF transporters come in,” a source said. American and Australian citizens have also been among passengers on the rescue flights. More than 750 British nationals have so far reached Cyprus on rescue flights.
James Cleverly, the UK’s foreign secretary, has made a direct appeal to the heads of the warring factions as he called for the bloodshed to end. “If they aspire to be the leader of Sudan, demonstrating a willingness to protect the people of Sudan would be a very important starting point,'” said Cleverly.
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has called on countries to shift their focus from evacuees to those who remain in Sudan, and said that an urgent frontline funding surge is needed for both Sudan and Chad.
China has deployed its navy to rescue citizens from Sudan, the defence ministry in Beijing said on Thursday.
The UK’s Ministry of Defence has issued this photo of evacuees on a military transport plane heading from Sudan to Cyprus.
Updated
UK urges warring generals to extend ceasefire as deadline approaches amid scramble to evacuate
Britain’s ambassador in Sudan is speaking to the warring parties in the country to urge them to extend a 72-hour ceasefire that is due to expire tonight, a spokesperson for the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said on Thursday.
“The British ambassador continues to speak to the warring parties in Sudan,” Reuters reports that the spokesperson told the media. “As part of that, we are obviously supporting an extension to the ceasefire and are lobbying for that.”
Updated
The UK’s Foreign Office has published this clip of the foreign secretary, James Cleverly, updating parliament on the Sudan evacuation programme in the House of Commons in London earlier today.
British nationals in Sudan should make their way to Wadi Saeedna airfield as soon as possible.
— Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (@FCDOGovUK) April 27, 2023
Foreign Secretary @JamesCleverly updates the @HouseofCommons on the UK’s ongoing evacuation efforts in Sudan. pic.twitter.com/B92Ro2pdFe
Updated
Here is a clip of the Conservative MP Alicia Kearns, who is chair of the foreign affairs select committee, asking the UK’s foreign secretary, James Cleverly, in parliament in London to review the criteria for evacuation from Sudan in order to expand it to people currently not covered.
Today I urged the Foreign Secretary to review the criteria for evacuation from Sudan and also to commit every possible resource to preventing a resumption of hostilities after midnight tonight. pic.twitter.com/0l546mSJtY
— Alicia Kearns MP (@aliciakearns) April 27, 2023
Updated
Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which support the former warlord Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, have used what they have described as their official Telegram channel to reissue their earlier statement, but in English. It reads:
The RSF have successfully repelled an attack by extremist coup forces in the Kafori area. The attackers used warplanes and artillery in their assault on an RSF camp, but were met with strong resistance from RSF forces.
The RSF forces were able to disperse the attacking forces and seize their military equipment. The coup forces suffered significant losses in the engagement, which occurred during the humanitarian truce established to open humanitarian corridors for citizens and residents of friendly countries.
The attacks on RSF camps by coup forces and remnants of the former regime have been ongoing. These attacks are often accompanied by false rumors and baseless propaganda, which have been their practice for the past 30 years.
The RSF remains committed to maintaining security and stability in the region, and will continue to work tirelessly to protect the citizens and residents of friendly countries.
The claims have not been independently verified. The RSF still does not appear to have made any public response to calls to extend the 72-hour ceasefire, which is due to expire at midnight local time tonight.
Updated
Helena Smith is at Larnaca airport in Cyprus for the Guardian, speaking to people who have been evacuated from Sudan:
A resident of London for the past 30 years, Hadija got trapped by the fighting in Sudan after flying in to attend her nephew’s wedding.
“I have two daughters and a son and they are all doctors,” she said smiling at the thought of being reunited with all three as she waited in the departure hall of Larnaca airport for a charter plane to Stansted.
“I left everything behind, my jewellery, my clothes, everything when it became clear that we had to do this [evacuation].”
The British national, who was in Sudan with her son and daughter-in-law, described how hard it had been not only getting to the Wadi Seidna airbase but waiting once there for a flight out.
“There was no plane. For two days we had to sleep on the ground and there was very little to eat. It was very hard but I am – we all are – very happy now.”
Updated
There have not been a huge number of photos coming out of Sudan showing the situation on the ground there, but these have appeared on the news wires in the last couple of hours and all were claimed to have been taken today.
Updated
Reuters has a quick snap to say that about 16,000 people have crossed the border from Sudan into Egypt including 14,000 Sudanese citizens, according to a statement from the Egyptian foreign ministry on Thursday.
AFP reports that at least 512 people have been killed and 4,193 wounded in the fighting in Sudan, according to health ministry figures, although the real death toll is likely much higher.
UK-bound flight carrying 250 evacuees has left Cyprus
A second Stansted bound charter plane carrying an estimated 250 evacuees has just left Larnaca, Helena Smith reports.
“We are trying to line up charters for as soon as possible after the RAF transporters come in,” said one well-placed source. “And what I can say is that the military planes flying in are much fuller today.”
American and Australian citizens have also been among passengers on the rescue flights.
Still the official said it would probably take a week to evacuate all those who were eligible to leave Sudan. The ceasefire which has enabled flights from Khartoum is scheduled to end at midnight local time tonight.
Helena Smith is at Larnaca airport in Cyprus for the Guardian, speaking to people who have been evacuated from Sudan:
Sami Elhaj, a car factory worker who has lived in Birmingham since the age of three, got caught up in the crosshairs of Sudan’s descent into violence while visiting family in the country.
“I had gone to support my relatives after my father died,” the 26-year-old said as he prepared to embark on the onward journey to Stansted from Cyprus.
“What I saw there was crazy, terrifying. The poor people of Sudan are desperate and right now we’re really worried for the family we had to leave behind and what could happen to them.”
Like other evacuees, Elhaj had spent the night in an army training camp in Larnaca now being utilised by Cypriot authorities for the rescue operation.
“You never expect this sort of thing to happen to you. We’re all just so happy and relieved but we know there are others there who want to be where we are, who want to follow us.”
Sudanese families of British nationals must be allowed to flee the country alongside their relatives, the UK’s shadow foreign secretary, David Lammy, has said in parliament in London.
PA Media reports he told the Commons: “It is not right that British nationals are unable to leave because their close Sudanese family members are being excluded from safe passage, especially as we know that planes have left the airfield without being full. Can I urge the foreign secretary to take swift action to ensure that British citizens can travel with their family now?”
During a debate in the Commons about Sudan, several MPs raised case studies of people from their constituencies who lived and worked in the UK, but who were now finding themselves in difficult circumstances having visited Sudan for family reasons, and who were now without the paperwork to be able to access the evacuation flights, or had close family who did not meet the criteria and had to be left behind.
The foreign secretary, James Cleverly, cautioned against relaxing restriction on who could access the emergency flights, warning it might create an unsustainable demand.
Earlier, Downing Street said there were no current plans to create a specific resettlement scheme for anyone fleeing Sudan. The prime minister’s official spokesperson said there were no plans, but that it was “something we keep under review”.
Updated
Kate Connolly, the Guardian’s Berlin correspondent, reports from Germany:
German lawmakers voted in retrospect in favour of the mission to rescue civilians from Sudan. In a parliamentary vote, 663 – the majority of MPs – gave their approval to the military mission as is required under German law.
In an unusual move, the far-left Die Linke party was also behind the evacuation. A vote regarding the rescue operation from Afghanistan in 2021 had proved more divisive.
But Gregor Gysi, foreign affairs spokesperson for the party, was critical of the German government for failing to recognise the precariousness of the situation in Sudan much earlier.
“The government should have reacted to the dangerous situation in Sudan must earlier,” he said. “There are other countries other than China, Russia and Ukraine,” to which the government should be paying attention, he said.
In the past few days German service personnel flew 700 people out of Sudan. About
200 of them were German citizens, Boris Pistorius, the defence minister, told the MPs.
Under the decisions, further rescues will be possible until the end of May, depending on conditions on the ground in Sudan.
Helena Smith is at Larnaca airport in Cyprus for the Guardian, speaking to people who have been evacuated from Sudan:
Twenty days after she took leave from her job in Bristol to attend a family funeral in Khartoum, nursery school teacher Khadija Mohamed said she felt she had gone to hell and back. By the time she touched down in Cyprus on an RAF C-130 Hercules, the 53-year-old had experienced “the shock of shootings everywhere,” the sight of dead bodies strewn in the streets “if you can imagine that” and the acrid smell “everywhere and all the time” of burnt out and burning cars.
“It was terrible,” she said happily engaging in conversation as she and her niece Rodina, and other relatives, stood in line at the check-in counter of the charter company that would later fly them all home.
“We really appreciate what is being done for us. We really appreciate what the British people have done for us.”
Mohamed, who has lived in Bristol since 2003 and has dual citizenship, described the perils of getting to the airstrip being used by the RAF north of Khartoum.
“I was, we all were, very frightened,” she said putting a reassuring arm around her niece as they posed for the Guardian. “There were a lot of checkpoints staffed by the Sudanese army along the way. Each time you had to show your passport and it was really scary but once we got to the base the British soldiers were really good, really helpful. We felt in a way as if we had come home.”
James Cleverly, the UK’s foreign secretary, has said that in advance of the Sudan evacuation mission, the Royal Navy had diverted a vessel towards Port Sudan. He said that it was not envisaged that the vessel itself would be used as a ferry or platform for refugees, but that it would provide command and control capability in the region should evacuation by sea become the UK’s policy.
He has also been asked again about media reports that senior German political sources have said British operations included a landing not authorised by Sudanese authorities, and this had a knock-on effect of hampering German operations. Cleverly was quite careful to say that “to my knowledge” this was not the case, but added that if there were lessons to be learned, they would be.
UK foreign secretary: 'demonstrating willingness to protect people' very important starting point for those wishing to lead Sudan
James Cleverly, the UK’s foreign secretary, has made a direct appeal during a statement in the House of Commons in London to the two generals whose forces are battling in Sudan. He told MPs:
With regard to an extension of the ceasefire, we are pushing hard for that and we are amplifying the voices of those in the region, and more widely, that this is in the best interests of Sudan.
I would say here at the despatch box for either of the generals who might be watching this statement, that if they aspire to be the leader of Sudan, demonstrating a willingness to protect the people of Sudan would be a very important starting point.
The clashes in Sudan erupted in the middle of April amid an apparent power struggle between the two main factions of the military regime.
The Sudanese armed forces are broadly loyal to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s de facto ruler, while the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a collection of militia, follow the former warlord Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.
In the UK’s parliament, foreign secretary James Cleverly has said that the UK is one of only three nations in the world that have established an airhead near Khartoum to facilitate evacuations, along with France and Germany. However, noone can guarantee what will happen when the ceasefire comes to an end, he added.
The foreign secretary has told the UK parliament that the government is exploring other evacuation routes, and that the UK has set up a temporary presence at Port Sudan, and has a presence in neighbouring countries.
James Cleverly said in parallel with the evacuations, the government would continue to work on the stability of Sudan and work with neighbouring nations to ensure that the conflict doesn’t spill out into the region.
Cleverly also addressed the issue of the British ambassador being absent from Khartoum at the time the crisis erupted, stating that the diplomatic service has a well established chain of command, and that the embassy and consular services were being led by the embassey’s second-in-command.
The British foreign secretary James Cleverly is giving a statement in the House of Commons on the situation in Sudan. He has called on both sides in the conflict to de-escalate and end the violence but has warned that a ceasefire is not necessarily a prelude to peace, adding that the situation could deteriorate in the coming days. He has said the UK will evacuate as many Britons as possible.
However, he faced questions from David Lammy, the shadow foreign minister, who said it was not right that families were being split apart when those with British passports were being airlifted but other family members without were not.
Lammy also pointed out that other countries evacuated their citizens before the ceasefire was announced, while the UK waited and so has been unable to rescue as many. He also called for action to end the bloodshed in Sudan
The UK’s Ministry of Defence has issued some photographs of personnel at work in Sudan as part of the operation to airlift British nationals from the country.
Sky News have their Middle East correspondent Alistair Bunkall on the ground at Larnaca airport too, and he has filed an on air report in which he said the operation “got into their stride” and that between 500 and 800 more people could be expected to land in Cyprus today on RAF planes.
He told viewers:
What we are being told effectively by the Foreign Office is probably just in excess of 550 have landed in Larnaca, and I think that’s what they are categorising as people who are safe
But what that doesn’t take into account is any flights that are mid-air, and at any one time there’s at least one or two flights on their way from Khartoum to here.
So throughout the day they’re expecting at least five or six flights to land here. And that could be, at a guess, anywhere between 500 and 800 people depending on the capacity of the aircraft and how many people they look to get on.
So you do feel like it’s a process that’s now sort of moving pretty slickly. If they had a few problems in its early days, and this criticism of it happening too late, it does feel like now they’ve kind of got into their stride.
He said of the recent arrivals, who were being booked in behind him onto an onward charter flight to the UK:
There’s quite a few British officials on hand in order to help in any way that they can. The other thing you notice is a lot of young children. So that has been a feature of people coming through here.
You know a lot of people are sort of quite wide-eyed. A lot of them are very quiet. The people we’ve spoken to, and their experiences, as you would expect … they’ve all been through a very, very rough time. And they feel it intensely.
So this is, of course, a moment of relief for them, when they’re here. This is a moment of safety. They know they’re safe, they are going back home. But what they have lived through over the last ten to twelve days has been very frightening indeed.
"There are potentially hundreds, if not thousands that are yet to make the journey."
— Sky News (@SkyNews) April 27, 2023
@AliBunkallSKY reports live from Larnaca Airport, Cyprus, where Britons have landed from Khartoum, Sudan and are heading to London Stansted airporthttps://t.co/HAtjitLGY3
📺 Sky 501 pic.twitter.com/fwtvQcBiLT
Helena Smith is at Larnaca airport in Cyprus for the Guardian:
British national Mona Zanon, evacuated to Cyprus on an RAF plane Wednesday, was among the hundreds boarding charter flights for Stansted at Larnaca International Airport today.
Moments before she was escorted to the gates, the 65-year-old who has mobility problems, related the trauma of trying to get to the Wadi Seidna airbase north of Khartoum in time for the airlift.
“I had emailed the [UK] authorities there to come and get me,” she told the Guardian, clutching her British passport. “I got absolutely no answer. It made me quite angry.”
In the end Zanon, who has lived in Manchester with her family for decades, said her brother escorted her to the airstrip. “It was very dangerous, but I don’t think the British army came too late. They saved us and we are very grateful.”
“I am so happy to be going back home now,” she said breaking into a broad smile. “I had gone to Khartoum to bury my mother, attend her funeral with the rest of my family. I had left my son and husband in Manchester. “
Short of Sudan’s warring factions agreeing to an extension, the 72-hour truce in theory expires at midnight tonight, with foreign secretary James Cleverly saying earlier that he could not guarantee the airlift would continue in those circumstances.
'Element of discretion' over those the UK will help in Sudan, Downing Street says
In the UK, Downing Street has said there were no current plans to create a specific resettlement scheme for anyone fleeing Sudan.
Prime minister Rishi Sunak’s official spokesperson said that evacuation eligibility requirements had not changed but that there was “an element of discretion” for those working on the ground in Sudan.
Only British passport holders and immediate family members with existing UK entry clearance are being told they are eligible for evacuation.
The official said that remained the case, but added: “There is an element of discretion for people on the ground as you might expect, given the circumstances and the challenging situation people will be facing.”
PA Media reports that asked to explain the meaning of “discretion”, the spokesperson said: “You should not go to the airport unless you are a British passport holder or their dependent, that is set out very clearly.
“I think what we are saying is we recognise these are very challenging circumstances and, as we have done on previous occasions, we obviously empower people on the ground to make decisions.”
Updated
Annette Weber, the EU’s special representative for the Horn of Africa, has stated on Twitter that she is in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa with the African Union and regional stakeholders “to coordinate collective efforts in Sudan and beyond.”
She cited the Pretoria process, a November 2022 agreement to end hostilities in Ethiopia, as proof that “a transition from war to peace in the Horn of Africa is possible”.
In Addis Ababa🇪🇹, I am engaging @_AfricanUnion and regional stakeholders to coordinate collective efforts in Sudan🇸🇩 and beyond.
— Annette Weber (@EUSR_Weber) April 27, 2023
The Pretoria process is proof that a transition from war to peace in the Horn of Africa is possible. The 🇪🇺 fully supports this message. pic.twitter.com/aGI8WWtmpH
Earlier today the BBC spoke to one woman whose British family have made it to Egypt out of Khartoum via bus under their own steam. They spoke of a lack of communication from UK authorities, and how disheartening it was to see British diplomats pulled out of the country at the weekend. She told the BBC:
We were begging the embassy to just let us know even in the most brief or vague of terms whether or not there was some plan. You know, we didn’t want to be in this situation. Halfway through the desert with two young kids. But they didn’t tell us anything.
And it was really disheartening when they pulled all the diplomats without giving kind of any other information as to what would happen to regular kind of people. So we thought we needed to take matters into our own hands.
Fighting has intensified in Darfur – reports
Fighting has intensified in Sudan’s province of Darfur during a fragile three-day truce between the country’s top generals, killing an estimated dozens of people, residents said Thursday.
Associated Press reports that the new clashes targeted civilians in the city of Genena. Residents described attacks by fighters, mostly wearing the uniforms of the country’s powerful paramilitary, on several neighbourhoods across the city early Thursday, forcing many families to leave their homes.
“The attacks come from all directions,” said Amany, a Genena resident who asked to withhold her family name for her safety. “All are fleeing.”
Adam Haroun, a political activist in West Darfur, said dozens of people were killed over the past two days in Genena. He said the fighting involved “light and heavy weapons”.
Speaking over the phone from Genena’s western neighbourhood of Gamarek, Haroun said fighters were roaming the streets, destroying and looting “whatever they found.” He said Genena’s main open market was completely destroyed.
“The battles are raging right now,” he said over the phone, the sound of gunfire overtaking his voice at times. “It’s scorched-earth war.”
Volker Perthes, the UN envoy for Sudan, said late Wednesday that the Genena clashes have been centered on civilians and run the risk of kicking off a dangerous cycle of violence between rival factions in the region.
Here are some of the latest images we have received over the news wires of evacuees from Sudan around the world.
India has stated that its navy has successfully evacuated 297 Indian citizens from Port Sudan to Jeddah.
#OperationKaveri
— SpokespersonNavy (@indiannavy) April 27, 2023
Continuing with rapid mobilisation of Naval & Air assets for quick & safe evacuation of Indian nationals from Sudan, #INSTeg on #AntiPiracy patrol safely evacuated 297 Indian citizens from Port Sudan to Jeddah.@IN_WNC @DefenceMinIndia @IAF_MCC @MEAIndia pic.twitter.com/AmY8bd5WY9
The RSF in Sudan is yet to respond in public to a proposal to extend the ceasefire that expires at midnight local time tonight.
An RSF statement earlier accused the army of attacking its forces on Thursday and spreading “false rumours”, but made no reference to the proposal which the army said came from the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), an African regional bloc.
Witnesses and Reuters journalists have said the sound of airstrikes and anti-aircraft fire could still be heard in Khartoum and the nearby cities of Omdurman and Bahri.
Sudan is one of the main topics of conversation in today’s edition of our Politics Weekly UK podcast. The UK government has been criticised for its slowness in evacuating UK nationals from Sudan. But what could this mean for the millions of civilians left there in dire and dangerous circumstances? The Guardian’s John Harris asks Africa correspondent Jason Burke. Listen to it here.
More than 750 British passport holders and dependents have reached Cyprus on RAF planes so far
Over in Cyprus our correspondent Helena Smith reports authorities are confirming that more than 750 British nationals have so far reached the island on rescue flights.
UK officials with access to flight logs say about 760 British passport holders and their dependents have flown into the country’s international airport in Larnaca on six RAF transport planes since Tuesday.
“Of that number 260 have continued onwards journeys on government-funded charter planes,” an official told the Guardian.
Three more flights are expected today with the first, already delayed, arriving around lunchtime local time.
An additional two are slated to fly in with evacuees at around 8pm and midnight if they, too, are not delayed because of chaos at the airstrip being used by the RAF north of Khartoum.
Asked why there would not be more flights, the well-placed source said it boiled down to availability. The C-130 and A400M transport planes are required to refuel at the island’s RAF Akrotiri base after making the three-to-four hour flight to Sudan and setting out again.
IRC calls on countries to shift focus from evacuations to helping those still in Sudan
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) has called on countries to shift their focus from evacuees to those who remain in Sudan, and said that an urgent frontline funding surge is needed for both Sudan and Chad.
In a statement from New York, president and CEO of the IRC David Miliband said:
While swift evacuations from Sudan have helped thousands, what about the nearly 47 million Sudanese who remain in the country? A rapid surge of humanitarian aid is the key to helping millions in Sudan. The IRC is staying and delivering critical aid in the country.
European leaders are focused on evacuating their citizens, but there is no time to waste in shifting focus on supporting and protecting those who remain.
The IRC is still operational in two states in Sudan. Protection for humanitarians is absolutely essential. Aid workers need safe access to populations in need so that organisations like the IRC can continue providing lifesaving support.
In order to prevent Sudan from sliding from a fragile state into a failed state, it is critical to ensure public services remain up and running in the country. With the instability of the government, this may require leaning more on local civil society and NGOs that have the greatest access to communities in need and most importantly in this perilous moment, have the trust of those communities.
Protection of civilians is critical. We see time and time again the way civilians are cut off from access to aid – including by directly attacking aid workers – and impunity for mass atrocities becomes the norm. We cannot let that happen yet again in Sudan.
We call on donors, especially across Europe, to step up funding to the frontlines – to critical NGOs – immediately to help those who remain in Sudan and those who have fled to Chad.
The UK has evacuated 536 people from Sudan so far
The British evacuation mission from the African country has seen 536 people taken to safety on six flights so far, according to the latest official figures, but the government has faced domestic and international criticism over its response.
There are concerns the evacuation efforts have seen families split up or some members left behind. Only British passport holders and immediate family members with existing UK entry clearance are being told they are eligible for evacuation.
PA Media reports Alicia Kearns, the Tory chair of the foreign affairs select committee, has called for elderly people dependent on children who are British citizens to also be accepted.
Officials say more than 2,000 British nationals in Sudan have registered their presence as part of the evacuation plans.
China deploys navy to rescue citizens from Sudan
China has deployed its navy to rescue citizens from conflict-hit Sudan, the defence ministry in Beijing said on Thursday.
“Recently, the security situation in Sudan has continued to deteriorate,” AFP reports Chinese defence ministry spokesperson Tan Kefei said. The navy was deployed on Wednesday, he added, “in order to protect the lives and property of Chinese people in Sudan”. He did not specify the number of vessels involved.
China said on Monday it had safely evacuated an initial group of citizens, estimating about 1,500 of its nationals were in Sudan.
And on Wednesday evening Wu Xi, head of consular affairs at the foreign ministry, told state broadcaster CCTV more than 1,100 Chinese nationals – including Hong Kong residents – had been evacuated.
China says it is Sudan’s largest trading partner, with more than 130 companies investing there as of mid-2022. About 800 Chinese citizens would be evacuated from Sudan by sea from 25-27 April, foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said Wednesday.
The UK’s Africa minister Andrew Mitchell has warned that an end to the ceasefire could result in a humanitarian catastrophe in Sudan.
PA Media reports he told the foreign affairs thinktank Chatham House: “It is essential that a ceasefire is maintained and that a political process is secured. If not, the humanitarian consequences will be incalculable. The UK will continue to work tirelessly to help bring an end to the violence and provide vital humanitarian relief.”
The UK’s foreign secretary James Cleverly has become the latest government figure unable to answer how someone in Sudan with connections to the UK could safely and legally flee the country and join their family in the UK.
Asked about families being split up when they arrived at the airstrip for the UK evacuation effort, Cleverly said:
The nature of the British nationals that we are seeking to evacuate … where we have families where a British national perhaps has a Sudanese national for a spouse, Sudanese children or extended family. It makes the extraction more complicated.
The BBC’s Martha Kearney clarified “When you say more complicated you mean they have to be left behind.”
Cleverly continued:
We have given advice as to the status or the prioritisation of the people that we are able to withdraw. We have said it’s British nationals and Sudanese with travel documents. And I know that there are difficult cases and of course we are trying to facilitate as many to leave the country as possible, through as many different routes as possible.
PA Media report that on Sky News he earlier said “There is war and conflict all over the world. There are literally millions upon millions of people who are in countries plagued by war. We recognise that we cannot host everybody who is in a country plagued by war.”
“Sudan is not the only country suffering from conflict and so picking out Sudan because it happens to be in the news, I think, diminishes the suffering of other people around the world firstly, and, secondly, we have to remember there are millions upon millions of people who are fleeing conflict or who are fleeing economic privations.”
Explainer: why is there fighting and what is at stake in the region?
If you need a quick refresher on the background to the conflict in Sudan, Adam Fulton and Oliver Holmes wrote this for us earlier in the week:
What’s behind the fighting?
The clashes erupted in the middle of April amid an apparent power struggle between the two main factions of the military regime.
The Sudanese armed forces are broadly loyal to Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s de facto ruler, while the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a collection of militia, follow the former warlord Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.
The power struggle has its roots in the years before a 2019 uprising that ousted the dictatorial ruler Omar al-Bashir, who built up formidable security forces that he deliberately set against one another. When an effort to transition to a democratic civilian-led government faltered after Bashir’s fall, an eventual showdown appeared inevitable.
How did the military rivalries develop?
The RSF was founded by Bashir to crush a rebellion in Darfur that began more than 20 years ago due to the political and economic marginalisation of the local people by Sudan’s central government. The RSF was also known by the name of Janjaweed, which became associated with widespread atrocities.
In 2013, Bashir transformed the Janjaweed into a semi-organised paramilitary force and gave their leaders military ranks before deploying them to crush a rebellion in South Darfur and then dispatching many to fight in the war in Yemen, and later Libya.
The RSF, led by Hemedti, and the regular military forces under Burhan cooperated to oust Bashir in 2019. The RSF then dispersed a peaceful sit-in that was held in front of the military headquarters in Khartoum, killing hundreds of people and raping dozens more.
A power-sharing deal with the civilians who led the protests against Bashir, which was supposed to bring about a transition towards a democratic government, was interrupted by a coup in October 2021.
The coup put the army back in charge but it faced weekly protests, renewed isolation and deepening economic woes. Hemedti swung behind the plan for a new transition, bringing tensions with Burhan to the surface.
Hemedti has huge wealth derived from the export of gold from illegal mines, and commands tens of thousands of battle-hardened veterans. He has long chafed at his position as official deputy on Sudan’s ruling council.
France’s foreign ministry has tweeted about the arrival of the frigate Lorraine in Jeddah, specifying that nationals from 50 nationalities were on board, including people from the US, UK, Canada, Ethiopia, Germany, Netherlands, Italy and Sweden.
La frégate Lorraine de la Marine nationale est arrivée à Djeddah le 26/04/23 en provenance de Port-Soudan, d’où elle était partie la nuit précédente.
— France Diplomatie🇫🇷🇪🇺 (@francediplo) April 27, 2023
Cette nouvelle opération a permis d’évacuer du #Soudan 398 personnes, dont 5 🇫🇷 & des ressortissants + de 50 nationalités… pic.twitter.com/YoGZenhoum
Saudi Arabia says it has evacuated another 187 people
Saudi Arabia says that it has evacuated a further 187 people to Jeddah, including citizens from 25 nationalities.
The ministry of foreign affairs said that it included people from the Netherlands, Russia, Lebanon, Norway, US, Turkey, Serbia, Poland, Germany, India, Georgia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Sweden, Uzbekistan, UK, Ireland, Kenya, the Philippines, Ethiopia, Armenia, Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Paraguay and Pakistan.
In continuation of the evacuation efforts made by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia under the directives of the Kingdom's Leadership, several evacuees arrived in Jeddah this morning from the Republic of #Sudan, which included 187 individuals. pic.twitter.com/Hin6vWYJ2y
— Foreign Ministry 🇸🇦 (@KSAmofaEN) April 27, 2023
Saudi Arabia now says that in total it has “2544 people, including 119 Saudi citizens and 2425 individuals belonging to 74 nationalities.”
Updated
Foreign secretary James Cleverly has defended the pace of the UK’s evacuation response in Sudan during his morning media appearances, insisting that comparisons between states was not possible.
“We’ve worked in close coordination throughout. Different countries are operating evacuations in different ways,” PA Media report he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
He said: “Different countries have different sets of circumstances. Their nationals in countries don’t all behave the same way. Countries where their nationals tend to live in a close expat community who are geographically co-located, it’s easier for them to move en masse, it’s easier for them to be evacuated.
“British nationals, the pattern that we have seen is they tend to be more distributed around the city, often have Sudanese nationals as part of their families.”
Having said “I know it’s very tempting to do these international comparisons” Cleverly went on to say “I know how tempting it is to say these guys have done really well, we’ve done really badly. It is not as simple as that. The US for example, with all their might, with all their wealth, have only evacuated through their government channels their diplomats.”
Here are some of the latest images we have received over the news wires of evacuees from Sudan around the world.
The UK’s foreign secretary James Cleverly has been defensive about criticism of UK evacuation efforts from Sudan affecting and delaying efforts by Germany and other European nations to evacuate people.
The BBC has reported that German authorities told it that the British operation to rescue diplomats at the weekend “jeopardised” the efforts of other nations, because it didn’t have the permission of the Sudanese authorities to take place. Cleverly told listeners:
My understanding is we did have permissions for those overflights. I will, of course, look at the circumstances of that. My understanding is we’ve had permissions for those flights. We enjoy a very, very close professional relationship with the German government and the German armed forces that have been on the on the ground.
Chief political correspondent at the BBC, Nick Eardley, has also cited a source at the Ministry of Defence saying “It is complete nonsense to claim that we landed in Sudan without permission from the Sudanese army. We had permission.”
Senior German political sources had told the BBC that British forces landed in Sudan without permission as other European nations were hoping to airlift citizens to safety. They allege the “unannounced British military presence” angered the Sudanese army and caused them to delay access to the airfield for other nations.
The RSF forces in Sudan have issued a statement this morning via the @RSFSudan Twitter account and on Telegram, claiming that Sudan’s army has attacked one of their bases in violation of the ceasefire. It writes:
The extremist putschist forces have attacked the camp of the RSF in the Kafouri area with aviation and artillery. Our forces confronted the aggressor forces … and inflicted heavy losses … and seized their military equipment. The attacks of the putschists and the remnants of the former regime on the camps of our forces come during the humanitarian truce that was allocated to open humanitarian corridors for citizens and residents of brotherly and friendly countries.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Cleverly unable to say how many British people stranded in Sudan the government has contacted
The UK’s foreign secretary James Cleverly has been unable to clarify how many British citizens in Sudan it has been able to contact in what he repeatedly described as “an active war zone” where communications were “inconsistent”. On the BBC’s Today programme he said that the government had been making every effort to contact people in Sudan, telling listeners:
I understand how frustrating it must be when you are not able to get communication, or get updates of what’s happened. We’ve got to remember the mobile phone coverage in Khartoum has been inconsistent and patchy. We have been broadcasting messages. We have been sending out through social media channels. We have been sending out into organically constructed WhatsApp groups of the British national community.
We’ve been making direct calls with people of whom we have phone numbers. Often those calls do not get through because the mobile phone coverage is inconsistent.
I’ve seen examples of this, I’ve gone to the crisis response centre, where we’ve established communications with people at one point in the day, and then lost those communications at other points in the day.
So you say “how many?”
People have to understand that this is an active war zone where the internet is not consistent.
Previously the UK government has said that it estimated there were 4,000 British nationals in Sudan. They have been asked to register their presence in the country via a form on the UK government’s website.
France says it has evacuated 936 people from Sudan, including US and British nationals
Reuters has a quick snap that the French foreign ministry says it has now evacuated 936 people from Sudan. It says the latest evacuation operation, using the ship Lorraine, was also carrying British and US nationals, as well as French nationals. France again called for an end to the fighting.
Here is our latest video report on the evacuations from Sudan:
Cleverly: we cannot guarantee that we will be able to airlift UK citizens from Sudan after ceasefire ends
UK foreign secretary James Cleverly has told UK nationals in Sudan that he cannot guarantee that the UK will be able to provide them assistance after the ceasefire ends on Thursday night.
He told viewers of Sky News:
We had always planned to evacuate under whatever circumstances on the ground. The ceasefire that we had called for in conjunction with our international allies has made it considerably easier.
We cannot predict exactly what will happen when that ceasefire ends, but what we do know is it will be much, much harder, potentially impossible.
So, what we’re saying to British nationals is if you’re hesitant, if you’re weighing up your options, our strong, strong advice is to go through Wadi Saeedna whilst the ceasefire is up and running.
PA Media reports Cleverly added “There are planes, there is capacity, we will lift you out. I’m not able to make those same assurances once a ceasefire has ended.”
UK's Cleverly urges nationals in Sudan to move now as end of ceasefire nears
Britain may not be able to continue evacuating its nationals in Sudan when a ceasefire ends – something due to happen later on Thursday - and they should try to reach British flights out of the country immediately, foreign minister James Cleverly said.
“Now is the time to move because when the ceasefire ends, my ability to give the kind of limited assurance I can give now might go and we might not be able to evacuate,” Reuters reports Cleverly told Sky News television in the UK.
Sudan's army says it is willing to extend ceasefire amid plans for talks
Sudan’s army expressed willingness to extend the three-day ceasefire that is due to expire on Thursday night, amid sporadic fighting around the capital, Khartoum, Reuters reports.
The army said late on Wednesday its leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, had given initial approval to a plan to extend the truce for another 72 hours and send an army envoy to the South Sudan capital of Juba for talks.
The Sudanese armed forces and its rival, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), previously agreed to a three-day ceasefire that is due to expire late on Thursday. There was no immediate response from the RSF to the proposal from the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), a regional bloc.
The military said the presidents of South Sudan, Kenya and Djibouti have worked on a proposal that includes extending the truce and talks between the two forces.
“Burhan thanked the IGAD and expressed an initial approval to that,” the army statement said.
Any ceasefire extension could help international evacuation efforts. UK military chiefs said evacuation flights would continue as long as conditions were safe, though the foreign secretary, James Cleverly, said the UK “cannot guarantee” how many further evacuation flights will depart once the ceasefire ends.
Read more here: Sudan conflict – army says it is willing to extend ceasefire amid plans for talks
Blinken and African Union Commission chair hold talks
US secretary of state Antony Blinken and African Union Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat spoke on Wednesday about the crisis in Sudan.
Blinken’s spokesperson, Matthew Miller said the pair had discussed, “collaboration to create a sustainable cessation of hostilities and end the fighting in Sudan” and had agreed that the “AU’s continued leadership remains essential in pressing the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces to immediately cease military operations and allow unhindered humanitarian access.”
Welcome and what we know so far …
Welcome back to our live coverage of the crisis in Sudan.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken and African Union commission chairperson Moussa Faki Mahamat discussed working together to create a sustainable end to the fighting in Sudan, the state department said in a statement on Wednesday.
Evacuations from Sudan by sea, land and air are ongoing as the last day of a three-day ceasefire begins.
The UK’s foreign secretary James Cleverly is doing domestic media appearances, and we’ll have the latest lines from him.
My colleague Martin Belam will have more on the latest from Sudan shortly. In the meantime, here are the key recent developments:
Six UK flights have evacuated 536 people from war-torn Sudan, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said. UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has said the UK “cannot guarantee” how many further evacuation flights will depart once the 72-hour ceasefire in Sudan expires on Thursday night.
A sixth RAF transport plane carrying evacuees is about to land in Cyprus, well short of the total number originally expected by this time but indicative of the pick up in pace of the rescue mission. It is not known how many British nationals who are believed to include women and children are on the A400M plane but, as has been the case thus far, they will be processed in Larnaca before embarking on onwards journeys.
On Wednesday, Nigeria started evacuating around 3,500 of its nationals, mostly students. “The evacuation of our citizens has commenced. Seven buses have left Khartoum and they are heading to Egypt,” Manzo Ezekiel, spokesman for Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) told AFP.
A second American has died in Sudan, the White House said on Wednesday, and U.S. authorities are helping a small number of citizens seeking to leave the country during a ceasefire that has curbed fighting. While sporadic violence continues, the ceasefire announced by the United States on Monday appears to be holding, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.
Omar al-Bashir is in custody in a military hospital amid reports of RSF prison breaks, with Reuters reporting that Sudan’s army said the ousted former president was being held in a military hospital under police custody. It claimed that the formerly jailed Bashir and about 30 others were moved to the hospital on the recommendation of medical staff in Kober prison before fighting broke out in the country.
The British Red Cross has warned that the “desperate” humanitarian need in Sudan risks becoming “catastrophic”. Sam Turner, head of east and southern African region, said: “We expect the humanitarian need will only grow in the coming days and weeks, including in neighbouring countries as people flee their homes to seek safety.”
The AFP newswire reports that Ahmed Harun, a leading figure of the regime of deposed dictator Omar al-Bashir, has said he has escaped prison. It reports: “Harun, who led the regime’s infamous counter-insurgency campaign in the western Darfur region in the mid-2000s and is wanted for war crimes by the international criminal court, said he had broken out of the capital’s Kober prison.”
A truce in the 11-day conflict has been undermined by Sudan’s army and paramilitary force. Reuters reports: “Sudan’s army and a paramilitary force battled on the outskirts of the capital on Wednesday, undermining a truce in an 11-day conflict that civilian groups fear could revive the influence of ousted autocrat Omar al-Bashir and his loyalists.”
Crowds of families have been growing at Sudan’s border crossing with Egypt, desperately trying to escape their country’s violence and sometimes waiting for days with little food or shelter, witnesses said on Wednesday. People have been making exhausting drives across the desert to access points out of the country, including the Arqin crossing into Egypt at the northern border, where families have been spending nights outside in the desert, waiting to be let in.
Sudanese authorities and the RSF have traded accusations over the release of prison inmates in Sudan. Thousands of convicted criminals, including some sentenced to death, were held in the vast Kober prison in Khartoum, along with senior and lower-ranking officials from the Bashir regime, which was toppled four years ago.
Cyprus’s foreign ministry spokesperson Theodoros Gotsis told the Guardian that some of the evacuees who had arrived on the first flights had spent Tuesday night in an army training camp in Larnaca. “We have activated our non-combatant national evacuation operation and as part of that all facilities at our disposal are being used,” he said ahead of a fourth RAF flight arriving at the island’s main international airport.
