Sudan conflict: evacuation of Irish citizens slows but continues on EU partner planes

The evacuation of Irish citizens from Sudan was continuing sporadically on the aircraft of EU partners on Monday night, as violence continued across the country.

About 50 Irish citizens had been evacuated on French and Spanish aircraft by Monday morning with the pace of evacuations slowing later in the day due to logistical issues, sources said.

On Monday evening, the German and Swedish air forces were taking over the evacuation of Irish citizens along with their own people. Multiple flights were scheduled for Monday night and officials said seats for Irish citizens were being secured on these as they arose.

[ ‘Extremely dangerous’ in Sudan, says doctor whose family is ‘trying to find a way out’ of Khartoum ]

However, they said it would not be possible to obtain an accurate picture of the number of Irish evacuated before Tuesday morning, due to the “extremely fluid situation” on the ground.

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More than 100 Irish people are believed to remain in Sudan, including aid workers, business people and returned immigrants who obtained citizenship while living here. However, the figure requiring evacuation may be much higher when children and other dependents are taken into account.

Efforts to remain in contact with citizens and to gather accurate data are being severely hampered by continuing internet outages in the country.

At least 420 people, mostly civilians, have been killed so far in the fighting between two rival Sudanese military factions.

Meanwhile, a full Irish Emergency Consular Assistance Team (Ecat) is expected to be on the ground in Djibouti by Monday morning to assist in the evacuation.

The team comprises 12 Army Ranger Wing personnel and six Department of Foreign Affairs officials. Four of the team departed for Djibouti on Sunday with the remainder travelling on Monday.

It is understood they used a mixture of commercial, Irish Air Corps and EU military aircraft to get there. Along with most other EU nations, Ireland is using the small east African nation as a staging area for evacuations.

On Tuesday, smaller contingents of Irish diplomats and soldiers will travel on Swedish and German planes onward to Sudan where they will assist in processing and checking identification documents of Irish citizens before they board an aircraft back to Djibouti.

[ How will the Irish evacuation effort in Sudan work? ]

The exact number of Irish officials who will travel to Sudan will be on a case-by-case basis, depending on the number of available seats on the aircraft. “Each flight will be different,” one source said. “Everything is moving all the time.”

On Monday, officials defended Ireland’s response to the crisis, including the decision to send just 12 troops. Other countries have sent far larger contingents, including Sweden which is deploying 400 soldiers.

Twelve is the maximum number of troops that can be deployed overseas without triggering the “triple-lock” mechanism for overseas missions, which requires the approval of the Government and the Dáil and the backing of a United Nations resolution.

However defence sources said yesterday the triple-lock did not dictate the numbers being sent and that more could be deployed if needed.

It is understood the Government has received legal advice that the “triple-lock” does not apply to the mission as it is considered humanitarian in nature.

Part of the reason for a small contingent of troops was because Ireland is relying on seats on other country’s aircraft and that “every seat taken by an Irish solider or official is one that could be used to evacuate a citizen”, said one source.

Ireland lacks any aircraft of its own suitable for such a mission. A spokesman for Tánaiste Micheál Martin said yesterday two new Airbus C295W aircraft are expected to arrive in June and September and will be suitable for “Defence Forces military airlift transport requirements”. A third transport aircraft is expected by 2025.

These new aircraft may allow Ireland to take part “in various pooling and sharing opportunities” with partner nations, he said.