Foreign Powers have Rescued Embassy Staff and Nationals Caught in Sudan’s Deadly Fighting

Sudan’s rapid descent into war has left world powers scrambling to evacuate thousands of foreigners, including diplomats and aid workers, who have become stranded in the north-east African country. With Khartoum’s main international airport largely in ruins, air evacuations have been limited, with some governments attempting to use Port Sudan on the Red Sea as an escape route. It was a US special forces operation at the weekend that triggered a rush by many other western countries to get their diplomatic staff out. Egypt said it evacuated 436 of its nationals out of about 10,000 in neighbouring Sudan. One of Cairo’s diplomats had been wounded by gunfire. Nigeria has said it had asked for a safe corridor to evacuate 5,500 nationals, mostly students. The Libyan embassy in Khartoum on Friday said it had evacuated 83 Libyans from the capital, taking them to Port Sudan. The Tunisian embassy has announced an evacuation operation planned for Monday to extract citizens remaining in the country, after some had left aboard Saudi ships. A convoy of about 65 vehicles carrying 700 international United Nations, NGO and embassy staff drove from Khartoum to Port Sudan on Sunday as part of the evacuations.

SOURCE: CNN