Sudan conflict latest news: Final evacuation flight for fleeing Britons leaves as violence resumes

The deadline has passed for British nationals to arrive at Port Sudan for what is being billed as the last evacuation flight to leave the country as a fragile ceasefire holds.

The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) had given those looking to flee the war-torn nation until 11am UK time – midday in Sudan – to reach the departure site on the eastern coast.

Officials at the Foreign Office would not confirm what time the flight was due to take off, but flight tracking websites showed a Royal Air Force (RAF) Airbus A400M Atlas plane as having landed at Port Sudan at about 3pm on Monday.

The UK Government said it was “exceptionally” offering one final flight following a series of repatriation departures out of Sudan last week.

It is understood the flight will airlift a limited number of British nationals left in the country – which has been rocked by fighting that is pushing Sudan into a humanitarian crisis – who wish to leave.

Those who wanted to be on the aircraft were instructed to arrive at the Coral Hotel by the midday deadline.

The offer came after the warring factions agreed to extend a fragile ceasefire for a further 72 hours.

The last UK evacuation flight from Wadi Saeedna airfield in Khartoum departed at 9pm on Saturday, with Port Sudan – around 530 miles from the capital – the location for the final British departure.

More than 800,000 people may flee Sudan as a result of fighting between military factions, including many who had already come there as refugees, a U.N. official said on Monday.

“Without a quick resolution of this crisis we will continue to see more people forced to flee in search of safety and basic assistance,” Raouf Mazou told a member state briefing in Geneva.

“In consultation with all concerned governments and partners we’ve arrived at a planning figure of 815,000 people that may flee into the seven neighbouring countries.”

The estimate includes around 580,000 Sudanese, he said, with the others existing refugees from South Sudan and elsewhere.

So far, he said some 73,000 people have already fled to Sudan‘s neighbours – South Sudan, Chad, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Central African Republic and Libya.

U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths will visit Sudan on Tuesday, said Ramesh Rajasingham of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Griffiths was in Nairobi, Kenya, on Monday to discuss the situation in Sudan, which he described as “catastrophic.”

“We need to find ways to get aid into the country and distribute it to those in need,” Griffiths wrote on Twitter.

In separate comments, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Sudan said the humanitarian crisis was turning into a “full blown catastrophe” and that the risk of spillover into neighbouring countries was worrying.

“It has been more than two weeks of devastating fighting in Sudan, a conflict that is turning Sudan humanitarian crisis into a full blown catastrophe,” Abdou Dieng told member states via video link.

When bridges closed in her area of Sudan‘s capital Khartoum, Palestinian medical student Nour Kullab thought it was just another protest

Before she could grasp what was happening, electricity and water were cut off amid the din of gunfire and rockets, Kullab told Reuters at her family house in Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip four days after returning

“I got out of my home, there were no rickshaws, only cars and no one stopped for me, the industrial zone was on fire, and shops were closed. I felt horror as if it was doomsday,” Kullab, 25, said.

“When you see bodies scattered right and left, dismembered people, torched banks, you feel it is totally unsafe,” she said.

Hundreds of people have been killed since a power struggle between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) erupted into conflict on April 15.

On Monday, the Palestinian foreign ministry said it had concluded the evacuation of Palestinians in Sudan with the collaboration of Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia.

Gaza has gone through numerous wars between Israel and Palestinian factions and suffered its own bout of civil conflict. An Israeli-led blockade has restricted the movement of people and goods for years.

“It was worse than a war in Gaza,” said Kullab, who spent days without bread or clean water after she quit her house to live with a Sudanese friend.

Shops were closed as looting spread.

“There was a guy who sold water in tankers, salty water, from the sea, from the river, what is important that it was water. We could see through some algae but we used to boil it and drink, only to become more thirsty after,” said Kullab.

Kullab arrived in Sudan in 2015 to study medicine. Her studies were interrupted by civil conflict and the pandemic. When this war broke out she was days away from graduating. She had only a few exams to do.

“I felt my future was taken away against my will, everything has gone in vain,” she said.

On Friday, her family welcomed her at the crossing with Egypt with tears, not with celebrations as they had planned for later in May when she would have finished her studies.

“Happy conditions became sad,” said Kullab’s mother Ruwaida.

The growing rapprochement between Riyadh and Tehran after years of mistrust was visible on Monday as Saudi Arabia helped evacuate Iranian citizens fleeing the war in Sudan.

The Saudi navy carried the 65 Iranian citizens from Port Sudan to Jeddah and they will fly onwards to Tehran.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani called the transfer “a positive event” that had taken place thanks to Saudi-Iranian cooperation.

Ahmed al-Dabais, a senior Saudi military officer handling the operation, told Iranian evacuees that the two countries were good friends and brothers and they should regard the kingdom as their own country, in a video carried by local television.

Saudi Arabia, across the Red Sea from Sudan, has been a major hub for the evacuation effort as countries have worked to pull thousands of foreign citizens out of the conflict that suddenly erupted on April 15.

Revolutionary Shi’ite Muslim Iran and conservative, Sunni Saudi Arabia had feuded for years, backing opposing sides in wars and political struggles across the Middle East in a tussle for influence that fed conflicts and inflamed sectarian hatred.

Saudi Arabia cut off diplomatic relations in 2016 after Iranian protesters stormed the kingdom’s Tehran embassy following Riyadh’s execution of a Shi’ite Muslim cleric.

However, the two major oil producers agreed to end their rift and reopen diplomatic missions in a deal brokered in March by China.

A UN refugee official has said 73,000 people have so far entered neighbouring countries from Sudan.

It comes as the UN humanitarian coordinator in Sudan warned that the humanitarian crisis in the country was turning into a “full flown catastrophe” and that the risk of spillover into neighbouring countries was worrisome.

“It has been more than two weeks of devastating fighting in Sudan, a conflict that is turning Sudan humanitarian crisis into a full blown catastrophe,” Abdou Dieng, Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in the country, told a briefing of member states via video link.

Dieng added that civilians were taking refuge in parts of Sudan less affected by fighting or fleeing to neighbouring countries. “The regional spillover effect of the crisis is a serious concern,” he said.

Pictures show evacuees and military personnel at Wadi Seidna airport in Khartoum, Sudan boarding an RAF aircraft bound for Cyprus on Saturday.

Members of the military are working round the clock to assist UK citizens and others trying to escape the war-torn nation amid an uneasy ceasefire, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) has said.

Tension had been building for months between Sudan’s army and the RSF, which together toppled a civilian government in an October 2021 coup.

The friction was brought to a head by an internationally-backed plan to launch a new transition with civilian parties. A final deal was due to be signed earlier in April, on the fourth anniversary of the overthrow of long-ruling autocrat Omar al-Bashir in a popular uprising.

Both the army and the RSF were required to cede power under the plan and two issues proved particularly contentious: one was the timetable for the RSF to be integrated into the regular armed forces, the second was when the army would be formally placed under civilian oversight.

When fighting broke out on 15 April, both sides blamed the other for provoking the violence. The army accused the RSF of illegal mobilisation in preceding days and the RSF, as it moved on key strategic sites in Khartoum, said the army had tried to seize full power in a plot with Bashir loyalists.

Sudan’s former prime minister Abdalla Hamdok on Saturday urged for both sides to come together for peace talks to stop a full-blown civil war on the scale of the Libya and Syria conflicts.

He said in a press conference in the Kenyan capital Nairobi: “This is not a war between an army and a small rebellion. It is almost like two armies – well trained and well armed.

“God forbid if Sudan is to reach a proper civil war … it is a huge country and very diverse … it would be a nightmare for the world.”

The United Nations’ World Food Programme said on Monday it will immediately lift the suspension of its operations in Sudan that was put in place after the tragic deaths of its team member.

“WFP is rapidly resuming our programs to provide the life-saving assistance that many so desperately need right now,” WFP executive director Cindy McCain wrote on Twitter.

The WFP said on April 16 it had temporarily halted all operations in Sudan after three of its employees were killed in clashes between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) a day earlier.

The government announced final flights for evacuees would leave on Saturday evening after fears that the armistice between the two rival generals was wearing down.

However, an additional flight was made available on bank holiday Monday for Britons desperate to flee the country.

British nationals were given until noon to reach an airport in Port Sudan to be processed for the extra flight out of the conflict zone as rescue efforts shift to the east of the country.

Here is a look at what we know about the evacuation plans, so far.