Foreign powers have rescued their embassy staff and nationals caught in Sudan’s deadly fighting, even as on the ground many Sudanese are stuck in deteriorating conditions.
US special forces helped bring almost 100 people – mostly US embassy staff, as well as a small number of diplomatic professionals from other countries – to safety on Saturday, US officials said. Several other European, Asian and Middle Eastern nations were scrambling to do the same.
Evacuations have been complicated by ongoing clashes. The two sides at the center of more than a week of fighting – Sudan’s army and a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – blamed each other after a French evacuation convoy came under fire trying to leave Sudan, with one French national injured.
One staff member of the Egyptian embassy in Sudan was also shot and injured during an evacuation operation, Cairo’s foreign ministry said.
Sadly, many Sudanese civilians are either trapped in their homes with dwindling food, or desperately looking for find exit routes out of the country via its land borders, with the capital’s main international airport still shuttered.
The flurry of operations came on the ninth day of clashes in Khartoum.
Sudan’s military leader, Gen. Abdul Fattah al-Burhan, and commander of the RSF, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, seized control of the country in a military coup in 2021 and were due to hand over power to a civilian government but turned on each other instead.
More than 420 people have been killed and 3,700 injured in the fighting, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The humanitarian situation on the ground is deteriorating without access to medical services, and with many left stranded without food or water.
A series of ceasefires, including the latest called for the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr, have been broken.
Residents in parts of Khartoum said early on Sunday morning that there were no signs that the cessation of hostilities was being adhered to, as they awoke to aerial attacks, heavy artillery, explosions and gunfire. They relayed that clashes were raging around the military headquarters and presidential palace in the city center.
Despite the steep risks, foreign governments continue to announce rescue missions to pull their citizens out.
US citizens in Sudan were advised they could join evacuation convoys organized by the UAE and Turkey on Sunday, with the US government saying it has no plans for its own citizen evacuation.
There are an estimated 16,000 American citizens in Sudan – most of whom are dual nationals.
Some countries have already successfully carried out evacuations, including the United Kingdom, Spain, Jordan, and Italy. Several of their convoys also carried citizens from other countries including Portugal, Mexico, Palestine, Iraq, Syria and Germany.
More evacuations are still being planned or are underway for France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Germany, Sweden, Egypt, Turkey, Libya, India and Russia.
But as foreign nationals rush out on evacuation planes, millions of Sudanese citizens have been left to fend for themselves – stranded for days in their homes and uncertain of how to make their way out to safety.
Isma’il Kushkush, a Sudanese-American journalist based in Khartoum, was trapped with 29 residents, including children and foreign nationals, in a building in downtown Khartoum near the presidential palace for days.
“No power or water for five days. Using little water remaining in water tank. Running out of food rations. Unable to leave the building which is located two blocks from the presidential palace. Epicenter of the fighting since the conflict began,” he said in a string of text messages to CNN. The group was later safely evacuated.
In neighborhood WhatsApp group chats and on social media, others were deliberating over where to get water, to charge phones, find medics and find safe passages out of Khartoum free of fighting. Many asked for advice on routes to Egypt on public transportation.
A woman in her 30s, who asked not to be named for security reasons, told CNN that she managed to flee Khartoum by bus to Egypt.
She said she was driven to do so by the unpredictability of the RSF and the worsening conditions in the capital.
While her family had a generator and they were able to supply water to houses in their neighborhood, it was unclear how long they would be able to carry on or when the tide of clashes might bring fighters to their doorstep.
“It was a case of do we stay and risk starvation. Or be killed by a stray bullet? … We decided to take the risk,” she said, adding that she had heard of people without food and water dying in their homes. “We just figured we were sitting ducks sheltering in our houses.”
A group of her relatives, including two babies and an elderly woman with a serious medical condition, found a bus driver willing to take them to Egypt. They left Friday morning and arrived at the border on Saturday evening; the group was only stopped once by Sudan’s armed forces in Omdurman, she said.
But they struggled to get men without visas into Egypt and a few people without passports – including newborn babies – were turned away.
“They had to be left behind. And we’re still trying to work out how to get them paperwork to get them across the border,” she said.
Meanwhile, Nigeria’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, said that arrangements have been made to evacuate over 5,500 Nigerians stranded in Sudan by road.
Speaking on Channels Television’s ‘Politics Today on Sunday, Onyeama stated that his ministry has been informed that an estimated 5,500 citizens, which included students, workers and others have indicated their readiness for the evacuation.
The minister stated that the evacuation plan to move by road became imperative following the attack on the flight of the French rescue team in Sudan.
He said: “We have been given the cost estimate and all the details. They gave us a figure of 5,500 who are ready for evacuation. Obviously, what you need in a situation like this is a place where everybody can congregate before you start moving them out. Because the airports, as you pointed out in your report, is out of commission. The only viable way out is by road. Of course, it’s totally safe. So we want to require the government to provide some security and a safe corridor out.
“Our situation is particularly challenging because the numbers are so great. Some of the countries like the US and European countries have started evacuating. But what they’ve been evacuating were actually their diplomatic staff. They haven’t been able to start evacuating their citizens there. We can’t evacuate all our diplomatic staff at the moment because they need to also coordinate the evacuation of all those students that we’re talking about.”
Onyeama said the ministry is taking careful steps not to endanger the lives of stranded Nigerians by soliciting security protection from the Sudanese authorities.
According to him, the three options available to us include the Egyptian border, Port Sudan, and the Ethiopian border.
“So essentially, where we are at the moment is trying to get the authorization from the Sudanese government to undertake this long journey and for them to provide some security. Now we don’t want to take any risk or risk the lives of any Nigerian. Because from what we saw yesterday, for instance, how the French in trying to evacuate their citizens came under fire. We don’t want to expose our brothers and sisters to that danger as well.
“We are doing everything we can to get the requisite approval for the Sudanese government at the very highest level. I was in touch today with somebody in the Office of the President and made a formal request to have a safe corridor to evacuate our people. And they confirmed that they had received it and they would be giving us attention.
“The three options available to us include the Egyptian border, Port Sudan and Ethiopian border,” he stated.