Sudan evacuations gather pace in fighting lull
At least 427 people killed since fighting started on April 15
Europe, China and Japan raced to extract their citizens from Khartoum on Monday and thousands more people took advantage of an apparent lull in fighting between the army and a paramilitary force over the past two days to escape Sudan.
The sudden eruption of violence between the military and the well-armed Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group on April 15 triggered a humanitarian crisis and has killed 427 people, U.N. agencies said. Others have expressed fear for their lives as clashes spread through residential areas, Reuters reported.
Nations including Persian Gulf states and Russia were trying to get citizens out on Monday, and there was a growing exodus to Sudan’s neighbours, including 10,000 people who fled to South Sudan despite chronic instability there.
Along with millions of Sudanese without access to basic services, foreign diplomats, aid workers, students and their families found themselves in a war zone last week. Internet connectivity was cut on Monday, website Netblocks reported.
Fighter jets have bombed the capital, the main airport has been at the center of fighting and artillery barrages have made movement unsafe in and out of one of Africa’s largest cities. Diplomats have been targeted in attacks, and at least five aid workers killed.
Despite sustained pressure from countries concerned by the conflict’s wider repercussions as well as the safety of their nationals, the two sides have not abided by a temporary truce. However, fighting calmed enough over the weekend for the United States to get embassy staff out by military helicopter, triggering a rush of evacuations by other countries.
Families with children crowded into Spanish and French military transport planes, while a group of nuns were among the evacuees on an Italian aircraft, photographs showed. Some of the flights left from the Wadi Seyidna air base north of Khartoum, the army said.
France and Germany on Monday said they had evacuated around 700 people, without giving a breakdown of their nationalities. A German air force plane carrying evacuees landed in Berlin early on Monday. Up to 20,000 people have already fled to Chad, U.N. agencies said last week. Officials in South Sudan’s Renk County said on Monday they had received about 10,000 people since the crisis started.
South Sudan won independence from Sudan in 2011, after a decades-long civil war. Since independence the new country has been beset by its own civil war, and refugees had previously spilled into its northern neighbour.