Western governments evacuate more citizens from Sudan as situation deteriorates

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The U.K. announced an extra evacuation flight from Port Sudan scheduled for Monday, extending its effort to help British nationals depart the strife-torn African country. The U.S. and France also brought groups of foreign nationals out of Sudan over the past days.

The moves come amid a deteriorating security situation in Sudan, as fighting continues between the Sudanese Armed Forces and its rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. 

“This additional exceptional flight facilitates the evacuation of a limited number of U.K. nationals remaining in Sudan who wish to leave,” the British Foreign Office said on Sunday. “This flight follows the U.K.’s successful evacuation operation from Wadi Saeeda near Khartoum, which has evacuated 2,122 people on 23 flights,” it added.

Britain’s Foreign Secretary, James Cleverly, said in a statement that “we continue to do everything in our power to secure a long-term ceasefire, a stable transition to civilian rule and an end to the violence in Sudan.”

Hostilities intensified in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, on Sunday despite a truce aimed at allowing civilians to flee, the BBC reported. The army said it was attacking the city to flush out its paramilitary rivals, according to the report.

Hundreds of people have been killed since a power struggle between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary RSF erupted into open conflict on April 15.

A French plane arrived in Chad on Friday carrying staff from the United Nations and international humanitarian non-profit organizations. France has evacuated over a thousand people from Sudan since the outbreak of hostilities. 

The U.S. State Department said on Saturday that a convoy of U.S. citizens, locally-employed staff and citizens of partner countries arrived in Port Sudan and that it is assisting those eligible to travel onward to Saudi Arabia. 

“Intensive negotiations by the United States with the support of our regional and international partners enabled the security conditions that have allowed the departure of thousands of foreign and U.S. citizens,” the State Department said. 

“We continue,” it added, “to call on the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces to end the fighting that is endangering civilians.”