Several other countries are making haste to leave Sudan.
A humanitarian catastrophe has been generated as a result of fighting between the army and a paramilitary organization, resulting in the deaths of 400 people.
KHARTOUM: On April 23, Reuters reported that Although the United States and the United Kingdom claimed that their militaries assisted in the evacuation of workers from both embassies, other nations’ evacuation efforts ran into difficulties on Sunday because to fighting between competing military groups in the capital Khartoum.
Eight days ago, violence broke out between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) organisation, resulting in the deaths of 400 persons and the confinement of thousands of residents to their houses.
Gunfire rang out across the city, and thick smoke hovered overhead as people raced to escape the pandemonium and other nations scrambled to remove their citizens.
Both sides claimed one French person was hurt as they traded accusations of targeting a convoy of French citizens. The French Foreign Ministry, which had earlier announced that it was evacuating its residents and diplomatic personnel, made no comments.
The RSF was charged by the army of assaulting and plundering a column of Qataris travelling to Port Sudan. Doha didn’t immediately issue a statement on any incident.
Without providing any information, Egypt claimed that a member of its mission in the Sudan had been shot and injured.
President Joe Biden reiterated appeals for a ceasefire while announcing that the US was temporarily stopping activities at its embassy in Khartoum but remained committed to the Sudanese people.
In a statement, Biden demanded that “the belligerent parties implement an immediate and unconditional ceasefire, allow unimpeded humanitarian access, and respect the will of the people of Sudan.”
During his lunchtime prayer on Sunday in Rome, Pope Francis urged a stop to the bloodshed.
On April 15, four years after long-reigning despot Omar al-Bashir was overthrown in a popular revolt, violence erupted in Khartoum, as well as its neighbouring sister cities Omdurman and Bahri, and other regions of the nation.
After organising a coup together in 2021, the army and RSF clashed about how to create a civilian administration and incorporate the RSF into the military.
The military forces of the nation have reportedly evacuated diplomatic personnel and their families, according to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Special soldiers, according to US sources, raced into Sudan’s conflict-torn capital on Saturday from a US base in Djibouti, spending barely one hour on the ground to evacuate less than 100 individuals. They used aircraft, including MH-47 Chinook helicopters.
Lieutenant General Douglas Sims, the head of operations at the Joint Staff of the Military, said, “We did not take any small-arms fire on the way in and were able to get in and out without issue.”
The US military may utilise drone or satellite photography to identify risks to Americans moving on overland routes out of Sudan, according to Chris Maier, an assistant secretary of defence, or it may place naval forces at Port Sudan to help Americans transiting there.
Breach of the cease-fire
Plans to restore civilian government in Sudan were shattered by the country’s quick descent into combat, which also put an already destitute nation in danger of a humanitarian catastrophe and raised the possibility of a broader confrontation involving foreign powers.
The biggest allegations of violence outside of Khartoum have come from Darfur, a western area bordering Chad, where a conflict that began in 2003 has claimed 300,000 lives and left 2.7 million refugees.
A three-day ceasefire for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr, which started on Friday, was not observed by the RSF under Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Hemedti, or the army under Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.
A video that briefly showed Hemedti in war gear in the driver’s seat of a pick-up truck outside Khartoum’s presidential palace, surrounded by applauding troops, was released online for the first time since the commencement of the conflict.
Although the buildings and road configuration in the video matched satellite footage of the region, Reuters was unable to independently corroborate the date the video was shot.
Approximately two kilometres (1.2 miles) away from the palace, Burhan stated on Monday that he was located in the army headquarters in the city’s centre.
Over the last two days in Bahri, where the army has deployed both soldiers on the ground and air strikes to attempt to push back the RSF, battles have raged near the army’s headquarters and the airport, which has been blocked by the skirmishes.
The RSF reported on Sunday that scores of people had been “killed and injured” as a result of airstrikes that were directed at its soldiers in Bahri’s Kafouri area.
According to a Reuters correspondent, RSF soldiers were widely dispersed around the city’s streets and bridges, while army personnel could be seen in several areas of Omdurman. Neighbourhoods were otherwise entirely devoid of people going about their daily lives.
Reuters-verified footage from Bahri shows a significant market on fire. Residents in the area, which is home to industrial zones with significant grain mills, reported seeing looting.
Tedros Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organisation, recounted several violent attacks on medical institutions. He stated that “the injured often cannot reach facilities and paramedics, frontline nurses and doctors are frequently unable to access the wounded.”
