Sudan: First evacuation flight of UK nationals lands in Cyprus

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By Charlie Adams and Sean Seddon, BBC News 25 April 2023

Updated 3 hours ago

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Military forces have been deployed to Cyprus to assist in the evacuation of British nationals stranded in Sudan

The first British evacuation flight carrying British nationals from Sudan has landed in Cyprus.

More flights are expected tonight and Wednesday, as the military tries to get hundreds out of the war-torn country during a 72-hour ceasefire.

The BBC has been told that 39 people were on the first flight, with 260 people expected to arrive in total tonight.

The trapped UK nationals were told to make their own way to an airport near Khartoum, unescorted.

The government said that families with children, the elderly and people with medical conditions are given priority on Royal Air Force planes departing from an airport near the capital, Khartoum.

Among the people on board the first evacuation flight were children and people over the age of 70.

People who land at Larnaca International Airport in Cyprus will later be flown back to the UK.

UK ministers are under increasing pressure to help their citizens flee the heavy fighting, but it is unclear how many will be reached.

On Monday, Foreign Secretary Andrew Mitchell said he believed around 4,000 British nationals were in Sudan, and 2,000 of them had already requested help, but fewer were expected to reach the evacuation point.

Other countries have flown in hundreds of people from Sudan, including more than 1,000 people from European Union countries.

Germany was due to finish its evacuation on Tuesday evening, having airlifted some 500 people on six flights.

“We can take, really, who turns up at the moment,” UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace told Channel 4 news – adding, “There is some risk that some of the planes are not full.”

A British source told the BBC on Tuesday afternoon that contacts with citizens in Sudan were “going well” and that people had managed to reach the air base.

The government said that only UK passport holders and their immediate families with an existing UK entry permit were eligible.

The State Department initially said people should not travel to the evacuation site until told to do so – but it updated its advice on Tuesday afternoon, urging people to make their own way to Wadi Saida airport north of Khartoum “as soon as possible”.

Online advice warned evacuees that “traveling within Sudan is done at your own risk and plans may change depending on the security situation”.

Wallace told a House of Commons committee earlier on Tuesday that 120 British soldiers were involved.

He also confirmed that the Royal Marines continue to prepare an alternative route out of Sudan through a port on the eastern coast, in addition to taking any emergency for any humanitarian response.

The BBC understands that the military operates under the assumption that it has a 24-hour window for planes to enter and exit, which Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has described as “crucial”.

There appears to be a temporary pause in the fighting that has engulfed the Sudanese capital, although there are reports of new gunfire and shelling, and the breakdown of previous agreements.

At least 459 people have been killed since clashes between rival military factions began on April 15, but the real number is believed to be much higher.

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said the government was unable to escort people to the airport and British nationals would need to “make their way there”.

Later on Tuesday, he said the situation remained “dangerous, volatile and unpredictable,” and that the feasibility of the operation depended on those involved in the fighting.

Addressing the State Department staff working on the evacuation, Swank said a “major push” was needed to “bring everyone who wants to come home.”

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Witness: A tour of the streets of Khartoum destroyed by the fighting

One man with dual nationality said he feared he might not get out of Sudan.

Musab, who is waiting to be evacuated from Khartoum, told the BBC the situation was challenging.

“The only thing I didn’t like was that they were asking people to come to the airport – which is very risky because there is no law and order,” he said.

Many British citizens have spent days indoors with no food or drink and no electricity or WiFi.

Many spoke of their anger and desperation at being left behind, while other foreign nationals and UK embassy staff were relocated.

Sir Nicholas Kay, the former British ambassador to Sudan, said the situation in Khartoum was precarious and the security situation could change quickly due to a lack of trust between the two sides in the conflict.

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Prime Minister Rishi Sunak praised the military forces “which carried out this complex operation”.

Dr. Nala Hamza, whose family is trying to get out of Khartoum, said the evacuation was “good news if it happens”.

She said her family, who live in the city center, ran out of their home at dawn to try to catch a bus to the north of the country.

“They were hiding in a room behind the house, away from the windows, because of the shooting,” she told BBC Breakfast.

Dr. Hamza said that at least 40 out of 55 hospitals “are not functioning at all” and that the system “was already suffering before the war”.

She added that there is no safe way to get any help and that the doctors are exhausted.

Mo, from Reading, said he was “very afraid” for his family, who arrived in Khartoum the day before the violence broke out.

“They were in that area for the first five days, with no electricity and water, and they were isolated,” he said.

“Even getting to that airfield which is being looked at to evacuate the British from, would in itself be difficult to get to.”

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