US-brokered ceasefire ‘partially holding’ in Sudan – live

The first Turkish civilians evacuated from Sudan returned to Turkey on Wednesday, with more than 100 people arriving by plane at Istanbul airport, Reuters footage showed.

The Turks came from the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, where they had arrived by land from the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.

Several more flights were expected later on Wednesday to evacuate the remaining Turkish nationals crossing into Ethiopia from Sudan.

Fighting broke out again in Sudan on Tuesday night despite a ceasefire declaration by the warring factions as more people fled Khartoum and former officials, including one facing international war crimes charges, left. prison.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has called on both sides in Sudan to end the conflict and return to negotiations..

A Sudanese woman married to an Indian man has made a desperate appeal to be evacuated after being left stranded – along with her 21-month-old son – by fighting in the country.

“Please help me and my son,” says Baraah Abaker, 23, as countries including India scramble to evacuate their citizens.

Fighting began earlier this month between forces loyal to Sudanese army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

Abaker was in her final year at Bahri University when her husband Abdul Haseeb left for India in October last year for work. He left her son with an Indian passport with her.

Abaker, a veterinary doctor in her final year, was to take her exams before returning to her husband in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad.

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Rishi Sunak has promised “many more” evacuation flights in what will be a “critical” 24 hours as ministers scramble to rescue Britons from war-torn Sudan.

The prime minister said more than 1,000 people had been contacted, out of an estimated 4,000 in the country, with many heading to an airfield outside Khartoum.

But the government was forced to defend the timing and handling of the evacuation effort amid claims that it had “diverted attention.”

The ministers denied that the British should have been evacuated sooner after Germany announced it would complete its operation overnight.

It came as Alicia Kearns, chair of the select committee on foreign affairs, urged the government to “commit as many resources as quickly as possible” to the bailout because “there is a very real danger that fighting will return.”

A US-brokered ceasefire in Sudan appears to be partially holding, but there are no signs the warring parties are ready for serious negotiations, the UN special envoy to Sudan said yesterday.

This suggested “that both think it is possible to secure a military victory over the other,” envoy Volker Perthes told the UN Security Council. “This is a miscalculation.”

On 15 April fighting broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Both sides agreed to a 72-hour ceasefire starting Tuesday after negotiations mediated by the United States and Saudi Arabia.

“Seems to be holding up in parts so far. However, we are also hearing continuous reports of fighting and troop movements,” said Perthes, who spoke by video from Port Sudan.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres described the violence and chaos in Sudan as “heartbreaking”.

The power struggle puts Sudan’s future at risk and could cause suffering for years and set back development for decades, Guterres said.

The United Nations has transferred hundreds of employees and family members to Port Sudan from Khartoum.

The United Nations plans to establish a hub in Port Sudan to continue working in the country where, even before the violence broke out, almost 16 million people – a third of the population – needed humanitarian aid.

British citizens in Sudan who are experiencing fuel shortages must still proceed to Khartoum’s Wadi Saeedna airstrip for evacuation, UK Africa Minister Andrew Mitchell said.

“Travel within Sudan is at the risk and expense of British citizens and plans may change depending on the security situation,” he told lawmakers, adding that he had “enormous sympathy” for British citizens facing difficulties. to travel within Sudan.

People who have registered with the foreign ministry should receive contact from the department at least once a day, he said, in what appeared to be a reference to automated messages.

Mitchell added: “The atmosphere in Khartoum makes that kind of communication difficult. Yesterday there was 2 percent of the Internet; that makes communication extremely difficult, but in principle that has been what we have tried to achieve. The system is working but it is jerky.”

Families watched as fighter jets roared overhead and bombs dropped just miles from them as they were forced into hiding, report Bel Trew and Tara Cobham:

So far, more than 420 people, including 264 civilians, have been killed in the conflict and more than 3,700 have been injured.

The sudden slide into violence between the Sudanese military and a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has stranded thousands of foreigners, including diplomats and aid workers in the country, with the UK, US, France, Germany, Italy, Greece, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states among which are closing their embassies and working to evacuate their citizens.

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US President Joe Biden’s national security team continues to speak with military leaders on both sides of the Sudan conflict to support a lasting end to the conflict, the White House said.

The United States is working with Sudanese partners and civilian groups to achieve a permanent ceasefire and humanitarian arrangements, spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday.

Darfuris fear that battles between rival Sudanese military leaders could reignite warfare in the vast and largely desert region already scarred by a two-decade-long conflict.

The Darfur conflict originated around 2003-2004, pitting rebels against government forces backed by equestrian militias known as “Janjaweed” in violence that killed an estimated 300,000 people and uprooted millions from their homes.

Despite repeated peace agreements, the conflict has simmered ever since, with violence increasing in the past two years. Now the conflict that began in Khartoum between the Sudanese army and RSF paramilitaries, who had been ruling together during a political transition, has quickly spread to Darfur.

Residents and sources have reported looting, ethnic retaliatory attacks and clashes between the two military factions in various population centers around the agricultural and nomadic region that is roughly the size of France.

Local mediation has helped defuse conflicts in the main cities of Nyala and al-Fashir, but shelling and looting has continued in the city of Genena, leaving Darfuris fearing another major war explosion.

“If this continues, if we get military commanders who are part of influential tribes assassinated, then it will be anarchy. There will be tribal mobilization,” said Ahmed Gouja, a journalist and rights activist in Nyala.

For Sudan’s warring leaders, Darfur is as familiar as it is strategically important. Army chief Abdel-Fattah Burhan rose through the ranks of the army while fighting in Darfur. RSF chief Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo started out as the leader of one of the militias that took part in much of the fighting on the government side during the Darfur conflict, inflicting a colossal proportion of the violence.

Now that the army is trying to drive its RSF fighters from their positions in Khartoum, the group may return to its roots in Darfur to try to regroup and get reinforcements.

The UK will replace German forces running the Wadi Saeedna airfield on Wednesday, defense secretary Ben Wallace said.

“The Germans are leaving tomorrow and we will take over the facilitation at the airfield,” he told LBC. “And the reason the Germans are leaving is that people have stopped coming in large numbers.”

Only one nation can facilitate the airfield at a time, Wallace said, adding: “If the Spanish or the Italians or anyone else wants to fly, we will be the ones to effectively issue the permits.”

The minister also said that 99 per cent of British citizens who have registered with the Foreign Office did so in Khartoum.