Countries race to evacuate citizens from Sudan as fighting continues

KHARTOUM – A German air force plane with 101 people evacuated from Sudan landed in Berlin early on Monday, as countries rushed to extract their citizens from Khartoum amid a deadly power struggle between the army and a paramilitary force.

Sweden said that all of its embassy staff in Khartoum, their families and an unspecified number of other Swedes have been evacuated to nearby Djibouti.

Swedish military planes and personnel would continue to help in the evacuation of foreign nationals as long as the security situation allowed, the country said.

Sudan’s sudden slide into conflict between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has seen hundreds of people killed, and left thousands of foreigners, including diplomats and aid workers, stranded.

Several evacuations are by air. Others are via Port Sudan on the Red Sea, which is about 650km north-east of Khartoum, but about 800km by road.

The German air force has flown out 311 people so far from an airfield near Khartoum, the military said, and the first batch was brought back to Berlin on Monday aboard an A321 Airbus from the Al Azrak base in Jordan, which is being used as a hub for the evacuation operation.

The German military did not provide a breakdown of how many of those evacuated were German citizens or nationals from other countries.

Switzerland said it has closed its embassy in Khartoum and evacuated staff and their families.

“Our staff and their families have been evacuated and are safe,” Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis tweeted late on Sunday.

The Foreign Ministry did not say how many people were rescued but said the evacuees were in good health, with two people on their way to neighbouring Ethiopia and the rest evacuated to Djibouti with help from France.

“The exercise was made possible thanks to collaboration with our partners, in particular France,” Mr Cassis said.

Work was continuing to help Swiss nationals stuck in Sudan.

The Swiss Foreign Ministry on Friday said there were about 100 Swiss nationals registered in Sudan while others are thought to be visiting the Red Sea area as tourists.

France on Monday said it was continuing to evacuate people and has so far managed to evacuate 388 people.

Denmark’s Foreign Ministry told Reuters that 15 Danish citizens have been evacuated from Sudan in a French-led rescue operation, while another six citizens rejected an offer to be evacuated.

The fighting in Sudan has triggered a humanitarian crisis in the impoverished country, where millions of people have been left without access to basic services.

At least 420 people have been killed since the fighting broke out on April 15, four years after long-ruling autocrat Omar al-Bashir was toppled.

The army and RSF jointly staged a coup in 2021 but fell out during negotiations to integrate the two groups and form a civilian government, and their rivalry has raised the risk of a wider conflict that could draw in outside powers. REUTERS