2023-04-23 01:59:44
Today, Saturday, a first batch of Saudis and nationals of other countries arrived in the city of Jeddah after being evacuated from Sudan, as the battles between the army and the Rapid Support Forces entered their second week, and the declared temporary truce failed to be implemented.
Since its outbreak on April 15, battles between the army, led by Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces, led by Lieutenant General Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, known as “Hamidti”, have caused hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries.
The two former allies seized all power in a coup in 2021, removing the civilians who shared power with them. However, the differences and the struggle for power soon began between them, although they remained latent in the first period.
For the first time since the start of the fighting, Riyadh announced the start of evacuating Saudis and other nationals by sea to Jeddah, in the west of the Kingdom.
And the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that the Kingdom’s naval forces, in cooperation with other military branches, evacuated “91 citizens, while the number of people evacuated from brotherly and friendly countries reached about 66 people.”
She confirmed that all of these arrived in the Kingdom.
She pointed out that the foreigners are from 12 countries, namely Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, Egypt, Tunisia, Pakistan, India, Bulgaria, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Canada and Burkina Faso, including “diplomats and officials”.
The Saudi “Al-Ikhbariya” channel showed a video showing a warship upon its arrival at the port.
It is the first announced evacuation of civilians since the outbreak of the clashes, noting that the Sudanese army announced on the 20th of this month, the evacuation of 177 Egyptian soldiers who were present in the northern city of Meroe.
The issue of evacuating diplomats and nationals has become a pressing issue, especially for Western countries, in light of the ongoing battles.
Several parties, including the European Union, are preparing plans to evacuate their foreign nationals, while the United States, South Korea and Japan have deployed forces in neighboring countries in preparation for such operations.
The German magazine “Der Spiegel” reported that the defense and foreign ministers held an emergency meeting on Saturday to discuss the possibility of carrying out an evacuation operation, after three military planes were forced to return and not complete their mission on Wednesday.
Al-Burhan confirmed in a statement to the army that it agreed to “a request by a number of countries to facilitate and secure the evacuation of their nationals and diplomatic missions from the country,” and to “provide the necessary assistance to secure this.”
And the statement stated that “it is expected that the process of evacuating all missions whose countries request this will begin in the coming hours.”
He added that the United States, Britain, France and China will evacuate their diplomats and nationals by air “with military transport planes from Khartoum, and it is expected to start immediately.”
For its part, the Rapid Support Forces expressed their willingness to open “all airports” in Sudan to evacuate foreigners, although it is not possible to know which airports are controlled by these forces.
Al-Burhan stressed to Al-Arabiya TV that “all airports are under the control of the army,” with the exception of Khartoum and Nyala airports in South Darfur state, where “there is a problem.”
The violent explosions that rocked Khartoum in recent days stopped on the night of Friday to Saturday, after the two parties announced their acceptance of a truce on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr. But gunfire and explosions resumed on Saturday morning.
On Friday, the army announced that it had “agreed to a three-day ceasefire” on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr.
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