US agency sends in disaster response teams as western nations pull hundreds of diplomats and citizens out of strife-torn country
The US has warned of shortages of vital medicines, food and water in Sudan and deployed disaster response experts to the region, as efforts intensified to evacuate foreign diplomats and citizens from Khartoum.
On Sunday the UK successfully evacuated its diplomatic staff and dependents from Khartoum via a complex operation, while Germany and France said they had each evacuated more than 100 people. Italy, Spain and Canada also evacuated their citizens among other nationalities. A Dutch military plane took evacuees to Jordan early on Monday, the Dutch foreign ministry said. The US evacuated diplomats, embassy workers and their families on Saturday night.
With a series of ceasefires failing to hold, the death toll in Sudan has now passed 420, including 264 civilians, and more than 3,700 have been wounded, according to local and international NGOs. However, most analysts believe the true total of fatalities and injuries in more than nine days of fighting is much higher.
As battles raged in the centre of the Sudanese capital and in its twin city of Omdurman, Samantha Power, the head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) painted a grim picture of the reality on the ground.
“Fighting … has claimed hundreds of lives, injured thousands, and yet again dashed the democratic aspirations of the Sudanese people. Civilians trapped in their homes cannot access desperately needed medicines, and face the prospect of protracted power, water, and food shortages,” Power said.
“All of this suffering compounds an already dire situation: one third of Sudan’s population, nearly 16 million people, already needed humanitarian assistance to meet basic human needs before this outbreak of violence.”
The violence has pitted army units loyal to Sudan’s military ruler, Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, who is the deputy head of the ruling council. Their power struggle has raised fears of chaos and a humanitarian disaster in the country of 45 million people, Africa’s third-largest.
A new declared truce that was to coincide with the three-day Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr collapsed on Saturday. The ceasefire was supposed to allow thousands of Khartoum residents who have been trapped by the fighting to reach safety and visit family during the Muslim holiday of Eid.
Power reiterated calls for the parties to abide by the ceasefire.
Internet and phone services appeared to have collapsed across much of country on Sunday. Medicine, fuel and food were scarce in much of Khartoum, while a combination of fighting and looting made leaving home to search for essential provisions dangerous.
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In the UK, concern was raised for the safety of British nationals who remain in Sudan after the evacuation of diplomatic staff. Foreign secretary James Cleverly warned that UK government efforts to provide assistance to those stuck in Sudan will remain “severely limited” until a ceasefire is reached.
The UK opposition has demanded to know what the government is doing to help the remaining British nationals still in Sudan, after the Irish government confirmed it planned to send a team to Sudan to evacuate Irish citizens.
On Sunday night, Germany and France said they had each evacuated more than 100 people from the capital. Reports from Khartoum suggested that a first attempt to evacuate French diplomats had failed when a convoy came under fire, with some passengers injured.
The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said that his country’s operations in Sudan had been temporarily suspended. “Our diplomats are safe – they have been extracted and are working from outside the country,” he tweeted.
On the battered streets of Khartoum there was anger.
“They evacuated their people … the Americans do not care about Sudan … The safety of their people is a priority for them, we should not concentrate on that, we should think of ways to stop the war,” Madji Ebaid, a 61-year-old businessman, said.
Alaa Mustafa, a 33-year-old hospital lab assistant in Omdurman, said the evacuation by western countries showed that at least politicians in London or Washington “cared about their citizens”.
“Our leader might stop fighting but imagine only [to allow] the westerners to leave the country. What about us who are still here? There are so many humanitarian cases, and people who need emergency care. Their bodies are thrown on the streets.”
A woman preparing to evacuate Khartoum for the town of Kosti, the capital of the White Nile state 300km (185 miles) to the south, said she was scared by what the battling forces in the city might do once foreigners had gone.
“The westerners have left … It doesn’t feel OK for us … We don’t know what they will do tomorrow,” the woman, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals, said.
Reuters contributed to this report