US troops evacuated embassy staff from Sudan’s capital, President Joe Biden announced Sunday, as other nations sought to help their citizens escape deadly fighting between rival generals.
The clashes between the Sudanese army and a paramilitary group – which just entered their second week – have killed more than 400 people and left thousands wounded, while survivors cope with shortages of electricity and food, as well as a reported internet outage.
“Today, on my orders, the United States military conducted an operation to extract U.S. Government personnel from Khartoum,” Biden said in a statement released late Saturday night, Washington time.
He expressed gratitude for the “unmatched skill of our service members who successfully brought them to safety”, adding that Djibouti, Ethiopia and Saudi Arabia had helped in the operation.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken said his department had “temporarily suspended operations” at the embassy, citing “the serious and growing security risks created by the conflict”.
The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the militia currently challenging the authority of the regular army in the capital and elsewhere, tweeted hours earlier that it had “coordinated with the U.S Forces Mission consisting of 6 aircraft, for evacuating diplomats and their families on Sunday morning”.
In his statement, Biden also called for an immediate ceasefire and condemned the deadly violence: “It’s unconscionable and it must stop.”
Other foreign countries have said they are preparing for the potential evacuation of thousands more of their nationals, even though Sudan’s main airport remains closed.
More than 150 people from various nations reached the safety of Saudi Arabia a day earlier, in the first announced evacuation of civilians.
As the kingdom’s naval forces transported the civilians – including diplomats and international officials – across the Red Sea from Port Sudan to Jeddah, fighting resumed in Khartoum after a temporary truce saw gunfire momentarily die down on Friday, the first day of Eid al-Fitr.
Eid is normally a major celebration for Sudanese marking the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
This year it is marked by fear, grief and hunger.
………………
The struggle for primacy in Sudan entered the second day of Eid as the temporary ceasefire broke after some time it was announced by the warring forces of Army Chief Abdel Fattah-Al-Burhan and his rival Rapid Support Forces (RSF) chief Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
The conflict has claimed the lives of 413 people, leaving thousands injured and a thousand of others confined to their homes without electricity, water and communication.
The massive gunfire resumed on Saturday morning after the loud overnight explosions, reported AFP.
The clashes broke out on April 15 between Sudan’s army loyal to Burhan and paramilitary RSF forces under the command of Daglo. Both sides have been accusing each other of attacking the first.
Both parties were allied earlier when they staged a coup against President Omar al-Bashir ending his rule 2021 that started in 1993.
In an announcement on Friday, the army said it had agreed to a ceasefire for three days for the Eid ul Fitr holiday — at the conclusion of the Muslim Holy month of Ramadan.
A day earlier, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had also called for a ceasefire citing the end of the holy month.
Daglo, in a statement, said that he had “discussed the current crisis” with Guterres, and was “focused on the humanitarian truce, safe passages and protecting humanitarian workers”.
Earlier in the week, two 24-hour ceasefire calls were also ignored.
Both the thousand-stong RSF and the army are locked in an inexorable competition of strength with neither side apparently seeming to gain an upper hand.
People stuck in homes
The warring parties have forced millions of people in the capital Khartoum to confine to their homes in hot weather without electricity and water. Some of them only secured basic food supplies with some others fleeing the city.
A resident, Sami al-Nour, told AFP that “Eid is meant to be spent with sweets and pastries, with happy children, and people greeting relatives, instead, there has been gunfire and the stench of blood all around us”.
Khartoum has been witnessing one of the deadliest fighting, with military planes conducting strikes and tanks roaming around the streets, engulfing the country into violence.
On Friday, the army accused Daglo’s forces of assaults in the capital’s twin city of Omdurman where they released “a large number of inmates” from a prison. The paramilitary — a progeny of the Janjaweed militia group — denied the allegations.
The major cause of the bitterness between the Burhan and Daglo is the matter of RSF’s integration into the regular army. It was a key condition for a final deal seeking Sudan’s democratic transition.
RSF’s commander Daglo now maintains that the coup was a “mistake” that failed to bring about change, whereas Burhan says it was “necessary” to include more groups in politics.
