Final evacuation flights for Britons leave Sudan as UN warns 800,000 may flee country

Government ends evacuation flights from Wadi Saeedna airfield because of a lack of Britons coming forward and volatile situation on the ground

The final evacuation flight bringing Britons out of Sudan left the country on Monday evening as fighting continued to rage between warring factions.

British nationals were told by the Foreign Office that those looking to flee the war-torn nation had until 11am UK time – midday local time – to reach the city Port Sudan, on the eastern coast to be given the chance to board the last two flights.

The Foreign Office would not confirm if the flights had left the coastal city on Monday afternoon but flight tracking websites showed a Hercules plane left the airport at 6.43pm local time and an Airbus Atlas aircraft was due to depart the country hours later at 10.10pm local time.

The government has faced criticism from citizens trapped in the country after British diplomats were evacuated by the UK military a week ago.

Evacuees and military personnel at Wadi Seidna airport in Khartoum, Sudan (PA)

A number of Britons alleged they had not received any contact from the embassy and that a phone number that meant they could register with the Foreign Office was not given to them for five days.

The last two UK flights from Sudan are due to land in Larnaca, Cyprus, later on Monday evening after the government extended the criteria to include eligible non-British nationals, such as NHS doctors, who had been left stranded there.

The UK has now evacuated 2,197 people to safety from Sudan on more than 20 flights operated by the RAF. But the government has said it was no longer running evacuation flights from Wadi Saeedna airfield because of a lack of Britons coming forward and the volatile situation on the ground.

Foreign secretary James Cleverly said: “With thanks to the extraordinary efforts of staff and military, the UK has brought 2197 people to safety from Sudan so far – the largest airlift by any Western nation.

“As the focus turns to humanitarian and diplomatic efforts, we will continue to do all we can to press for a long-term ceasefire and an immediate end to the violence in Sudan.”

Evacuees and military personnel at Wadi Seidna airport boarding an RAF aircraft bound for Cyprus (PA)

Royal Navy ship HMS Lancaster will remain at Port Sudan and her crew will continue to help provide support.

It comes troops of the two rival generals clashed in the capital Khartoum on Monday, despite earlier agreeing to extend a fragile ceasefire.

The United Nations said the generals, Sudanese army chief General Abdel Fattah Burhan and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the head of a paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), had agreed to send representatives to the negotiation table in a bid to establish a more stable truce.

Generals Burhan and Dagalo, both with powerful foreign backers, were allies in an October 2021 military coup that halted Sudan’s fraught transition to democracy, but they have since turned on each other.

Smoke rises above buildings after aerial bombardment during clashes (Reuters)

Meanwhile, the UN has warned that more than 800,000 people may flee Sudan as a result of fighting between military factions, including many who had already come there as refugees.

“Without a quick resolution of this crisis we will continue to see more people forced to flee in search of safety and basic assistance,” Raouf Mazou, a UN official, told a member-state briefing in Geneva.

“In consultation with all concerned governments and partners we’ve arrived at a planning figure of 815,000 people that may flee into the seven neighbouring countries.”

The estimate includes around 580,000 Sudanese nationals, he said, with the others existing refugees from South Sudan and elsewhere.

So far, he said some 73,000 people have already fled to Sudan‘s seven neighbours: South Sudan, Chad, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Central African Republic and Libya.

At the same briefing, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Sudan warned that the humanitarian crisis was turning into a “full-blown catastrophe” and that the risk of spillover into neighbouring countries was worrying.

“It has been more than two weeks of devastating fighting in Sudan, a conflict that is turning Sudan humanitarian crisis into a full-blown catastrophe,” Abdou Dieng, resident and humanitarian coordinator in the country, said via video link.

Additional reporting by agencies