Sudan conflict: UK announces final evacuation flights

[ad_1]

By Michael Shiels McNamee, Jemma Crew and Joe Inwood, BBC News May 2, 2023

Updated 13 minutes ago

photo caption,

British nationals wait to board an RAF plane in Sudan

The British government said the last rescue flights for the UK were expected to take off from Sudan on Wednesday.

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said British nationals who still wished to leave the country should go to the Coral Hotel in Port Sudan by 10:00 local time (09:00 GMT).

He added that there would be “no more British evacuation flights” from the city.

So far around 2,341 people have been airlifted to safety on 28 flights in the UK.

It was previously believed that the evacuation ended on Monday when the planes left Sudan for Cyprus.

The UK government described its evacuation as “the longest and largest operation of any Western country”.

Among those rescued during the airlift were Britons and their families, Sudanese National Health Service staff and other eligible nationalities.

Earlier on Tuesday, Downing Street said 1,195 Britons had been flown out so far.

Last week, a short-term negotiated ceasefire allowed British evacuation flights to take off from an airstrip near Khartoum, while the shaky ceasefire held.

On Monday evening, two more evacuation planes left Port Sudan, carrying mostly Britons.

The two most recent flights have brought 144 people to safety.

Speaking earlier in the House of Commons, Africa Minister Andrew Mitchell told MPs that the evacuation “was very successful”.

He said the UK maintains a diplomatic presence in Port Sudan, as well as on Sudan’s borders with Egypt and Ethiopia.

and HMS Lancaster off the coast to support the British.

Mitchell said efforts were now focused on Port Sudan “to assist British nationals there who are seeking to leave”.

He continued: “Remaining Foreign Office staff are assisting British subjects to leave the country, and flagging options for departure.

“British nationals in Port Sudan who need support should visit our team without delay.”

He said an end to the violence “remains essential,” and said that “aid operations are now on hold.”

Previously, BBC Newsnight reported that 24 NHS doctors were unable to board evacuation flights to the UK.

MPs were told that the latest figures show 22 of them have now been evacuated out of the country.

A Sudanese pediatrician whose family’s passport was locked up at the British Embassy in Khartoum has now been evacuated.

Ilham Babikir, who was offered a job at Telford NHS Trust and secured a visa, was in the final stages of moving to the UK when fighting broke out. As a result, she was stranded with her husband and three children in Sudan.

After fleeing into the countryside, she eventually traveled to Port Sudan to seek help from the British authorities stationed there. In the last 24 hours she has been given a place on an evacuation flight after an intervention from the NHS.

“The officials there were very nice to us…the NHS helped evacuate us,” she said.

Speaking earlier to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Mr Cleverly said the focus was shifting to providing humanitarian aid, although he warned relief efforts could be hampered by the continuing conflict.

Fighting in the country has entered its third week, with thousands of people fleeing since the conflict erupted.

Fighting broke out last month between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces as they struggled for control of the country, with the capital, Khartoum, at the center of the fiercest fighting.

The United Nations said more than 100,000 people have fled the country since fighting broke out on April 15, with 334,000 people displaced within Sudan.

Officials warn of a “total catastrophe” if the fighting does not stop.

The pop-up radio service, which will broadcast twice a day for three months on the BBC World Service, will bring “crucial” news and information to people living in the war-torn African country.

The BBC said the report would include eyewitness accounts and news of the diplomatic efforts, and help combat disinformation.

[ad_2]