The Foreign Office has confirmed there will be no further rescue missions to save stranded Britons in Sudan.
The RAF rushed to evacuate as many UK nationals as possible from the war-ravaged African country after rival parties declared a ceasefire last week.
The final UK evacuation flights left Sudan for Cyprus, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said. They took off from Port Sudan on Wednesday night and Thursday morning, with the final one leaving at 1.10am local time — more than two hours later than scheduled.
Here’s what initially triggered the fighting in Sudan’s capital Khartoum and the rest of the country.
Why is there fighting in Sudan?
The conflict centres on a struggle between General Abdel-Fattah Burhan, the commander of the armed forces, and General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo (also known as Hemedti), the head of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) group.
Both groups had joined forces in the past to overthrow Islamist autocrat Omar Hassan al-Bashir in 2019, but are now locked in a disagreement about the integration of the RSF into the military.
Mr Hemedti has labelled Gen Burhan a “criminal” and accused the RSF of launching a coup in the country, amid smoke pouring out of buildings across the capital. Residents have been forced to take shelter in their homes.
If there is no intervention from armed forces leadership to stop the fighting, we are headed to an all-out civil war
What is a ceasefire?
A ceasefire is a temporary stoppage of a war in which each side agrees with the other to suspend aggressive actions.
Sudan’s ceasefire began on Tuesday, April 25. Western, Arab, and Asian nations were originally given 72 hours to remove their citizens from the country but this was extended into this week.
How many people have been killed so far in Sudan?
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on April 21 that 413 people had been killed and 3,551 injured in Sudan since intense fighting broke out.
WHO had recorded 11 attacks on health facilities in the country and called for such attacks to cease, spokeswoman Margaret Harris said.
The Sudanese Health Ministry on April 29 put the overall death toll, including fighters, at 528, with 4,500 wounded.
Unicef spokesman James Elder said on April 21 that at least nine children had been reported killed in the fighting and that more than 50 had been injured.
“Sudan already has one of the highest rates of malnutrition among children in the world,” Mr Elder said, as quoted by Reuters. “And now critical life-saving care for an estimated 50,000 severely acutely malnourished children has been disrupted. This is life-threatening.”
Unicef, the United Nations Children’s Fund, is responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to children worldwide.
The WHO also warned that local hospitals in the African country were running out of critical supplies, including blood for transfusions, to treat the injured.
Why are there British nationals in Sudan?
There are a few thousand British nationals living and working in Sudan, including a group of British diplomats and their families.
Although the precise number of remaining UK citizens is unknown, it is estimated to be in the thousands.
What happens if you are a British national still stuck in Sudan?
The ceasefire has ended and it is expected that the fighting situation will start to to intensify.
The Foreign Office said any British nationals still in need of assistance should visit the Foreign Office team at the Coral Hotel in Port Sudan, which is being used as a temporary office with the British Embassy in Khartoum closed.
But it is not expected that any further rescue flights will be.
Will there be a civil war in Sudan?
Yassir Abdullah, the managing editor of the Al-Sudani newspaper, warned on April 15 that Sudan was heading for “all-out civil war”, as Sky News reported.
“This is deeply serious,” Mr Abdullah said. “If there is no intervention from armed forces leadership to stop the fighting, we are headed to an all-out civil war.
“This is a threat to the stability of the country as a whole. There are no winners here.”
The fighting had escalated to involve armoured vehicles, truck-mounted machine guns, and war planes.
How did different countries evacuate their citizens?
Evacuation efforts in Sudan were ramped up as much as possible during the ceasefire.
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said on April 27 any further help in the form of rescue flights was nearly “impossible” once a ceasefire ends.
Planeloads of British nationals evacuated from Sudan were reunited with relatives and loved ones at London’s Stansted Airport last Wednesday (April 26) in emotional scenes. One man described the conflict as a “nightmare”.
Women with small children and babies in prams were among around 300 of the plane of people who were flown from Sudan, as well as elderly individuals who use wheelchairs.
British armed forces staged a "complex and rapid” evacuation of all diplomatic staff and their families from Sudan, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on April 23.
Germany evacuated more than 700 people by April 26, while officials in Rome said on April 23 that some 140 Italians would be evacuated.
United States special forces evacuated all government personnel and their dependents, as well as several diplomats from other countries, from the embassy on April 22 They used helicopters that flew from a base in Djibouti and refuelled in Ethiopia.
