Countries race to evacuate citizens from Sudan

Foreign countries rushed to extract their citizens from Sudan on Monday amid a deadly power struggle between the army and a paramilitary force.
A German air force plane with 101 people evacuated from Sudan landed in Berlin early on Monday.
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The German air force has flown out 311 people so far from an airfield near Khartoum, the military said, and the first batch was brought back to Berlin on Monday aboard an Airbus A321 from the Al Azrak base in Jordan, which is being used as a hub for the evacuation operation.
The German military did not provide a break-down of how many of those evacuated were German citizens or nationals from other countries.
Jordan had previously said four planes carrying 343 people, including Jordanian nationals and residents of Palestine, Iraq, Syria and Germany, had departed Sudan.
Sweden also announced that all its embassy staff in Khartoum, their families and an unspecified number of other Swedes had been evacuated to nearby Djibouti.
Swedish military planes and personnel would continue to help in the evacuation of foreign nationals as long as the security situation allowed, the country said.
Sudan’s sudden slide into conflict between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has seen hundreds of people killed, and stranded thousands of foreigners, including diplomats and aid workers.
Several were evacuated by air and others via Port Sudan on the Red Sea, which is about 650 kilometers (400 miles) northeast of Khartoum, but is about 800 kilometers (500 miles) by road.
The fighting in Sudan has triggered a humanitarian crisis in the impoverished country, where millions of people have been left without access to basic services.
At least 420 people have been killed since the fighting broke out on April 15, four years after Omar al-Bashir was toppled.
The army and RSF jointly staged a coup in 2021 but fell out during negotiations to integrate the two groups and form a civilian government, and their rivalry has raised the risk of a wider conflict that could draw in outside powers.
The French government on Monday announced that France is continuing to evacuate people from Sudan, with a further evacuation having been carried out on Monday morning. It added that its operations had so far resulted in 388 people being able to leave Sudan.
As for Denmark, 15 Danish citizens have been evacuated from Sudan in a French-led rescue operation while another six citizens rejected an offer to be evacuated, Denmark’s foreign ministry told Reuters.
The Dutch military also carried out evacuation operations of its nationals in Sudan where a Dutch military plane with evacuees flew from Sudan to Jordan early on Monday, the foreign ministry said.
People from different nationalities, including Dutch nationals, were on board the plane, the ministry said without giving further detail.
The ministry said it would continue to work on the evacuation of Dutch and other European Union nationals from Sudan.
Read more:
Switzerland closes embassy in Sudan’s Khartoum as violence surges
Spain evacuates about 100 people from war-hit Sudan: Government
France so far evacuates over 300 citizens from Sudan, French government says