Some foreigners have begun evacuating Sudan as the bloody fighting that has engulfed the vast African nation enters its second week.
The bloody onslaught of urban warfare has captured large numbers in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. The airport has been attacked repeatedly and many residents have been unable to leave their homes or leave the city for safer areas.
The United Nations and foreign states have urged rival military leaders to respect ceasefires that have been largely ignored and to open safe passage both for fleeing civilians and for the delivery of much-needed aid.
With the airport closed and the air unsafe, thousands of foreigners — including embassy staff, aid workers and students in Khartoum and elsewhere in Africa’s third-largest country — have also been unable to leave the country.
The Sudanese military said on Saturday it would facilitate the evacuation of US, British, Chinese and French citizens and diplomats from Sudan, while Saudi Arabia and Jordan were already evacuating through Port Sudan on the Red Sea. It said airports in Khartoum and Nyala, Darfur’s largest city, were problematic.
By late Saturday afternoon, Saudi Arabia said it had evacuated 157 Saudis and people of other nationalities and broadcast footage of people on a naval ship, and Kuwait said some of its citizens had arrived in Jeddah. Jordan said it had begun evacuating 300 civilians.
In a security alert, the US embassy in Sudan said it had “incomplete information about important convoys departing from Khartoum for Port Sudan” and that the situation remained dangerous. “Travel in a convoy is at your own risk,” it said.
With the US focusing on evacuating diplomats first, the Pentagon said it would move additional troops and equipment to a naval base in the small Gulf of Aden, Djibouti, to prepare for the effort.
Airport security ‘number one priority’
Al-Burhan told Saudi Arabia-owned satellite channel Al Arabiya on Saturday that flights to and from Khartoum remain risky because of the ongoing clashes. He claimed the military had regained control of all other airports in the country, except one in the southwestern city of Nyala.
“We share the concern of the international community about foreigners,” he said, without elaborating.
James Moran, former European Union ambassador to the Gulf and North African regions, told Al Jazeera that securing the airport is a “top priority” for evacuations, as Khartoum is “far away” from the port.
“It’s very difficult to get people out of Khartoum to the coast under those circumstances… you’re going to have to rely primarily on air transport,” Moran said.
“And knowing that the airport is not safe right now, it is no wonder that the Americans and others are skeptical about deporting people now until that airport is secured.
“Securing that airport and making sure the runway is good enough for military planes to land — and I think in most cases military planes will have to be used to get people out — that’s the number one priority.”
Even as the warring factions said on Friday they had agreed to a ceasefire for the three-day Islamic holiday of Eid al-Fitr, explosions and gunfire rang out in Khartoum on Saturday.
Two ceasefire attempts earlier this week also quickly failed. The unrest may have dealt a fatal blow to hopes of the country’s transition to a civilian-led democracy and sparked concerns about the chaos that could wreak havoc on its neighbours, including Chad, Egypt and Libya.
Pierre Honnorat, the head of the United Nations’ World Food Program (WFP) in Chad, said 10,000 to 20,000 Sudanese have crossed the border into the country since fighting broke out last week and the organization is preparing to “welcome at least 100,000 “. refugees.
Chad’s government needs support to deal with the influx of refugees, Honnorat told Al Jazeera.
“It will be extremely difficult if we don’t get support. We already have 400,000 Sudanese refugees in 14 camps along that border,” he said, but “absolutely no money for the 400,000.”
Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, head of the paramilitary group fighting against the army known as the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, claimed he would work to “open humanitarian corridors, to facilitate the movement of civilians and enable all countries to to evacuate their subjects to places of safety. ”.
We are committed to a complete ceasefire,” he told French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna.
But those on the ground painted a different picture on Friday.
“The war has been going on since day one. It has not stopped for a moment,” said Atiya Abdalla Atiya, secretary of the Sudanese doctors’ syndicate, which monitors victims.
According to the World Health Organization, more than 400 people have been killed in the fighting so far. The bombings, gunfights and sniper fire in densely populated areas have affected civilian infrastructure, including many hospitals.
The international airport near the center of the capital has come under heavy shelling as the RSF has attempted to take control of the compound.
In an apparent effort to remove the RSF fighters, the military has bombarded the airport with airstrikes, stripping at least one runway and leaving wrecked planes scattered on the tarmac. The full extent of the damage at the airport remains unclear.
The conflict has opened a dangerous new chapter in Sudan’s history and plunged the country into uncertainty.
“No one can predict when and how this war will end,” al-Burhan told Al-Hadath TV. “I am currently in the command center and will only leave it in a coffin.”
The current explosion of violence began after al-Burhan and Dagalo fell out over a recent internationally brokered deal with democracy activists that was intended to draw the RSF into the military and eventually lead to civilian rule.
The rival generals rose to power in the tumultuous aftermath of popular uprisings that led to the 2019 ousting of Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s longtime ruler. Two years later, they joined forces to seize power in a coup in which the civilian leaders were dropped off.
The military and the RSF have a long history of human rights violations. The RSF grew out of the government-backed Janjaweed militia, which was accused of atrocities in crushing an insurgency in the western region of Darfur in the early 2000s.
Many Sudanese fear that, despite the generals’ repeated promises, the violence will only escalate as tens of thousands of foreign citizens try to leave.
“We are sure that both sides of the struggle are more careful with foreign lives than with the lives of Sudanese civilians,” Atiya said.