Discussions of a ceasefire in Sudan raised hopes on Saturday that foreign nationals stranded in the country amid heavy fighting between rival military groups could soon be evacuated.
Sudan’s de facto president and commander-in-chief of the army, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, said he has agreed to facilitate the evacuation of foreign civilians and diplomats from the embattled country.
A Sudanese army spokesman said in a statement on Saturday that the United States, Britain, France, and China would begin evacuating from the capital Khartoum “in the coming hours” using military transport aircraft.
By Saturday evening, however, no citizens of Western countries had been evacuated.
Al-Burhan has pledged to “facilitate and guarantee” the evacuations and to provide the countries with “the necessary support to ensure this,” the army spokesman said.
The rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has been openly fighting the Sudanese army for the past week, also said in a statement it was “ready for a complete ceasefire” to allow evacuations.
However, apparent ceasefire agreements have been repeatedly violated during the conflict.
As clashes continue, Sudanese citizens are also trying to flee the fighting.
According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), up to 20,000 people have already fled to neighbouring Chad in the past few days.
Thousands more people have been displaced from heavily contested areas within the country.
Meanwhile, a Saudi Arabian delegation has already been evacuated from the eastern city of Port Sudan on the Red Sea, the army spokesman said, adding that a Jordanian delegation was also to be flown out of Port Sudan, some 850 kilometres from the Sudanese capital, later on Saturday.
According to the Saudi television station al-Arabiya, five Saudi ships also brought 158 people from Sudan to the Red Sea city of Jeddah.
Among them were diplomats and citizens from Saudi Arabia, Bulgaria, Canada, Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, India, Pakistan, Burkina Faso, and the Philippines, according to the Saudi Foreign Ministry.
In Sudan, the army is in control of all airports except those in Khartoum and the town of Njala in the South Darfur region, al-Burhan told Al-Arabiya.
The country’s de facto president said he remained in control of the army and would only let his rival and former deputy Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, the leader of the RSF, get away “in a coffin.”
Fighting broke out in Sudan about a week ago between the north-eastern African country’s two most powerful generals and their respective military units. (NAN)
