Another Sudan ceasefire announced as locals seek refuge, foreigners are evacuated

As the government ushers hundreds of diplomats and other citizens to safety, Sudanese are desperate to find a way out of the chaos, fearing the country’s rival generals will escalate their power struggle once the evacuation is complete.

In a dramatic evacuation operation, convoys of foreign diplomats, civilian teachers, students, workers and families from dozens of countries battled fighters on a tense frontline in the capital Khartoum to reach an extraction point. Others drove hundreds of miles to the country’s east coast. A stream of military aircraft from Europe, the Mideast, Africa and Asia flew all day Sunday and Monday to ferry people out.

But for many Sudanese, the airlift is an ominous sign that international powers, after repeatedly failing to broker a cease-fire, are only looking forward to an escalation of the already disastrous war.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he had helped broker a 72-hour ceasefire starting Monday. It would extend the nominal ceasefire that had done little to end the fighting but helped facilitate evacuations.

Global Affairs Canada, which is helping Canadians evacuate, said in tweet who accepted the truce and asked both sides to respect it.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned of “catastrophic fires” that could destroy the entire region. He called on the 15 members of the Security Council to “use maximum influence” on both sides to “pull Sudan back from the brink.”

Food, fuel, clean water are in short supply

Sudanese people face a difficult search for safety in a war of explosions, gunfire and armed fighters who loot shops and homes. Many gathered in his house for nine days. Food and fuel have increased in price and are difficult to find, clean water is scarce, electricity and internet have been cut off in many countries, and hospitals are on the verge of collapse.

Those who can afford it take the 15-hour journey to the Egyptian border or Port Sudan on the Red Sea coast. Those who could not go abroad fled to the quieter provinces along the Nile north and south of Khartoum. Many others are trapped, with cash shortages and rising transport costs.

“Traveling out of Khartoum has become a luxury,” said Shahin al-Sherif, a high school teacher. Al-Sherif, 27, is trying to arrange transport out of Khartoum for himself, his sister, mother, aunt and grandmother. He had been trapped in his house in Khartoum’s Amarat neighborhood for days while the war raged outside. Finally, they moved to a safer district.

But al-Sherif expects the situation to worsen and is worried that his sister, aunt and grandmother, all of whom have diabetes, will not get the supplies they need. The price of bus tickets has more than quadrupled so that renting a bus for 50 people to get to the Egyptian border costs around $14,000 US, he said.

‘Terrible suffering’

Amani el-Taweel, Egyptologist on Africa, warned of “terrible suffering” for Sudanese who cannot leave. In a country where a third of the population is already in need of humanitarian aid, aid agencies are no longer able to reach Sudanese people because of clashes.

Once the evacuation is complete, “the warring parties will not listen to calls for a ceasefire or a cease-fire,” he said.

Shama-el Sidahmed’s parents fled Khartoum last week. After his plan to cross the border into Egypt by bus failed, he planned to try a second bus in the morning.

Then, Global Affairs called her daughter to tell her there was room for her parents – both Canadians – on the scheduled Dutch evacuation flight.

“They didn’t give much detail other than they gave the location, and the scary part was they told us that it was up to us to know how to get there,” she said. The bus driver agreed to drop them off halfway to a military base where they would be evacuated by plane.

After losing communication for a while, Sidahmed said he recently learned that his parents had arrived at the base and were airlifted to safety.

“They are very worried, they are very scared, this thing is very risky, every step. There are challenges, there are obstacles,” she said, adding that she felt “guilty” for having to leave. a brother who is a citizen of Sudan.

Heavy gunfire and thunderous explosions rock the city as fighting continues between the military and a rival paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). In the evening, intensive airstrikes hit the Kalakla district on the Nile side of Khartoum for an hour until the area was “thrown to the ground,” said Atiya Abdulla Atiya, secretary of the Doctors’ Syndicate. The bomb sent dozens of wounded to the Turkish Hospital, one of the medical facilities still functioning, he said.

Egypt’s Foreign Ministry, meanwhile, said an administrator at the Khartoum embassy was killed on his way to work to help oversee the evacuation, without saying who was responsible. Cairo has close ties with the Sudanese army but has joined the ceasefire. Earlier, Egypt denied that any embassy staff were injured after the Sudanese military reported that one person had been killed, blaming the RSF.

More than 420 people, including at least 273 civilians, have been killed and more than 3,700 wounded since the fighting began on April 15. The military appears to have the upper hand in the battle in Khartoum but the RSF still controls many districts in the capital and neighboring countries. the city of Omdurman, and has several large forts throughout the country. With the military vowing to fight until the RSF is crushed, many fear a dramatic escalation.

For foreign nationals, the need to leave Khartoum has become overwhelming during the seventh day of the conflict. Khartoum’s wealthy neighborhoods, where most foreigners live, have seen some of the heaviest bullet and drone attacks, some of which are under RSF control.