2023-04-25 19:29:11
London launched, Tuesday, April 25, the evacuation of its nationals from Sudan via an airlift, thanks to a ceasefire of seventy-two hours concluded in the country between the belligerents. Some 4,000 British nationals live there, but only half have asked to be looked after. The British planes will take off from Wadi Saeedna airfield, located outside the capital Khartoum, with the Foreign Office asking departing candidates to surrender ” as soon as possible “ on the spot, by their own means.
The process starts when several countries, including France, have already started the evacuations of their nationals several days ago. A delay that sparked a lively controversy across the Channel. On April 24, the Secretary of State for Africa, Andrew Mitchell, was challenged in Parliament in Westminster in these terms by a Labor MP: “Can the Minister explain why partner countries were able to evacuate a significant number of their nationals (…), but not the UK? »
In response to this apostrophe, the senior official indicated that a soldier of the French special forces had been seriously injured during the evacuation operations, information which had not been made public until then by Paris..
Sentiment d’abandon
Asked by the media, many Britons trapped by the fighting in Sudan denounced a « abandon » of their government. “We have had no information. The government just said it wouldn’t do anything.”, was indignant a man on the BBC. The latter claims to have been forced to brave street fighting to flee the capital. One of his fellow citizens adds: “I filled out the locate form, and I received an automatic e-mail acknowledging receipt. But nothing else. »
The press across the Channel evokes a feeling of ” already seen “in reference to the chaotic withdrawal of the British in Afghanistan, after the capture of Kabul by the Taliban in the summer of 2021. The government of Boris Johnson had in particular authorized the repatriation of 200 dogs and cats from a shelter, even though the employees of the establishment, provided with a visa, had not been able to embark.
In Sudan, the choice to evacuate British diplomats and their families from Khartoum as a priority on April 23 has aroused widespread criticism. The British government justified this decision by the “extreme danger” to which they were exposed. Embarrassed, he also had to confirm that the British ambassador to Sudan, Giles Lever, was on vacation at his home in the United Kingdom when the conflict broke out.
A complex evacuation
For many countries, repatriation operations are proving to be a real headache. Since the start of the clashes, more than 1,000 European Union nationals have been able to leave. Tuesday, April 25, Paris said it had evacuated 538 people, including 209 French. Germany was to organize its last flight on Tuesday evening. Ukraine said it was able to get 138 people out of the country, including 87 of its nationals. Tokyo confided, for its part, to have evacuated “all the Japanese who were in Khartoum” and who wanted to leave.
The United States, which has 16,000 of its citizens in Sudan, exfiltrated and closed its embassy. On the other hand, they did not establish an overall evacuation plan. US National Security Council spokesman John Kirby simply called on US citizens to “make their own arrangements to stay safe in these difficult circumstances”.
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Concern around the occupation of a laboratory
The World Health Organization (WHO) alerted, Tuesday, April 25, on the “huge biohazard” posed by the occupation by belligerents of a laboratory in the capital of Sudan where samples of contagious pathogens are stored. “I received a phone call yesterday from the head of the central public health laboratory. It is occupied by one of the fighting parties”said by videoconference the representative of the WHO in Sudan, doctor Nima Saeed Abid, during a press briefing in Geneva. “They chased away all the technicians from the lab which is now completely under the control of one of the fighting parties” who uses it as a military base, said Dr. Nima Saeed Abid. The situation is “extremely dangerous” according to him, because this national laboratory contains samples of the pathogens of measles, cholera and poliomyelitis.
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