More than 190 Irish citizens evacuated from Sudan

More than 190 Irish citizens and their dependents have been evacuated from Sudan in the last week, Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin has said.

Earlier this month fighting broke out in the north-east African country between Sudan’s army and paramilitary, following months of growing tensions.

The conflict is between Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, president of Sudan’s military government, and Lt Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who is the head of one of the region’s biggest militia groups, Rapid Support Forces.

The outbreak of violence in the capital Khartoum and elsewhere has seen many countries scramble to evacuate their citizens who had been in Sudan at the time.

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On Saturday, Mr Martin said Irish citizens had been flown out of Sudan on flights operated by the UK, evacuating people to Cyprus in recent days.

“We are aware that a number of our citizens also continue to depart by land and sea. Our embassy in Nairobi remains in close and ongoing contact with any citizens who have requested assistance,” he said.

Separately, a convoy of buses carrying about 300 Americans left the war-torn capital of Sudan on Friday, starting a 525-mile journey to the Red Sea that was the United States’ first organised effort to evacuate its private citizens from the country.

The convoy was being tracked by armed American drones that hovered high overhead, watching for threats. The United Nations and many nations have also evacuated their citizens overland, after receiving security assurances from the warring sides.

It renewed questions about why the United States had taken so long to organise a civilian evacuation from Sudan, home to an estimated 16,000 US citizens, many of them dual nationals, when western and the Gulf allies have moved faster and evacuated far more people.

At least 512 people have been killed and 4,200 others wounded in the conflict, the World Health Organisation estimates, although the true toll is expected to be much higher.

[ Trapped in Sudan: Sudanese staff of European embassies question why they are not being evacuated ]

The scale of fighting declined somewhat in recent days as both sides partly respected a ceasefire, allowing evacuations to take place. Under international pressure, the two sides agreed to extend the ceasefire by another 72 hours from early Friday.

But an explosion of violence in Khartoum hours later, driven by a wave of air strikes, gunfire and explosions that rocked the city, prompted worries that a return to widespread combat was imminent.

Britain has evacuated 1,573 people since Tuesday from an airfield north of Khartoum, most of them British nationals. Germany and France have evacuated another 1,700 people by air. At least 3,000 more from various countries have been evacuated by sea from Port Sudan to Jiddah in Saudi Arabia, Saudi authorities said.

As the US ramps up its evacuation effort, other countries are already winding down: Britain announced Friday it would cease its airlift at 6pm. Saturday, citing a “significant decline” in demand for seats.

[ Sudan conflict: 163 Irish citizens and dependents now evacuated as ceasefire holds ]

The difference might reflect a more cautious US approach to evacuating civilians by air from a chaotic and unpredictable war zone with no defined front lines – a caution that appeared to be partly justified Friday when Turkey reported that one of its military aircraft had come under fire as it landed at the airfield on the edge of Khartoum.

The United States has helped its citizens get seats on flights out of Khartoum organised by allied nations and occasionally on convoys going through Khartoum to the airfield. Other Americans have made it over a border on their own by road, crossing into Egypt and Ethiopia, joining tens of thousands of Sudanese who have made the same journey.

Asked at a news conference Friday, before word of the US-run convoy had become public, why the US government had not run evacuation transportation in the same manner as other countries, Vedant Patel, a State Department spokesman, said it was working closely with partner countries on the efforts.

“This is a collective and collaborative effort,” he said.

Mr Patel said several hundred US citizens have left Sudan since the conflict began.

The line of hired buses that left Khartoum on Friday evening, came a full five days after 72 American diplomats were flown directly from Sudan by helicopter.

The delay between that evacuation, a complex night-time mission led by SEAL Team 6 commandos, and the move to facilitate the exit of US citizens has led to numerous negative comparisons with the efforts of other countries.

The United States initially said it wouldn’t evacuate US civilians or their families, citing a demand that fell significantly below that of other western nations. Secretary of state Antony Blinken said Monday that only “dozens” of US citizens had expressed a desire to leave.

Since then, other US officials have said they do not have a good estimate of the number of US citizens who want to leave at any given time because that shifts as the circumstances of the conflict change.

Meanwhile, British nationals seeking to flee Sudan have until midday to reach the evacuation airfield after the UK Government announced that flights out of the war-torn country will cease on Saturday.

The UK’s foreign, commonwealth and development office is urging those left in Sudan to travel to the Wadi Saeedna site before 12pm local time to be processed for the last journey.

Some 1,573 people on 13 flights have been evacuated from the airfield near the capital of Khartoum but thousands more British citizens may remain.

It comes amid criticism of the pace of the British evacuation, which was bought more time after a three-day extension to the ceasefire between warring generals was agreed on Thursday. – Additional reporting by The New York Times/PA

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