Sudan conflict live: more than 500 evacuated on six UK flights, says Foreign Office – as it happened

It’s slightly past midnight in Khartoum. Here’s a wrap-up of the day’s key events:

• Six UK flights have evacuated 536 people from war-torn Sudan, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said. UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has said the UK “cannot guarantee” how many further evacuation flights will depart once the 72-hour ceasefire in Sudan expires on Thursday night.

• A sixth RAF transport plane carrying evacuees is about to land in Cyprus, well short of the total number originally expected by this time but indicative of the pick up in pace of the rescue mission. It is not known how many British nationals who are believed to include women and children are on the A400M plane but, as has been the case thus far, they will be processed in Larnaca before embarking on onwards journeys.

• On Wednesday, Nigeria started evacuating around 3,500 of its nationals, mostly students. “The evacuation of our citizens has commenced. Seven buses have left Khartoum and they are heading to Egypt,” Manzo Ezekiel, spokesman for Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) told AFP.

• A second American has died in Sudan, the White House said on Wednesday, and U.S. authorities are helping a small number of citizens seeking to leave the country during a ceasefire that has curbed fighting. While sporadic violence continues, the ceasefire announced by the United States on Monday appears to be holding, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.

• Omar al-Bashir is in custody in a military hospital amid reports of RSF prison breaks, with Reuters reporting that Sudan’s army said the ousted former president was being held in a military hospital under police custody. It claimed that the formerly jailed Bashir and about 30 others were moved to the hospital on the recommendation of medical staff in Kober prison before fighting broke out in the country.

• The British Red Cross has warned that the “desperate” humanitarian need in Sudan risks becoming “catastrophic”. Sam Turner, head of east and southern African region, said: “We expect the humanitarian need will only grow in the coming days and weeks, including in neighbouring countries as people flee their homes to seek safety.”

• The AFP newswire reports that Ahmed Harun, a leading figure of the regime of deposed dictator Omar al-Bashir, has said he has escaped prison. It reports: “Harun, who led the regime’s infamous counter-insurgency campaign in the western Darfur region in the mid-2000s and is wanted for war crimes by the international criminal court, said he had broken out of the capital’s Kober prison.”

• A truce in the 11-day conflict has been undermined by Sudan’s army and paramilitary force. Reuters reports: “Sudan’s army and a paramilitary force battled on the outskirts of the capital on Wednesday, undermining a truce in an 11-day conflict that civilian groups fear could revive the influence of ousted autocrat Omar al-Bashir and his loyalists.”

• Crowds of families have been growing at Sudan’s border crossing with Egypt, desperately trying to escape their country’s violence and sometimes waiting for days with little food or shelter, witnesses said on Wednesday. People have been making exhausting drives across the desert to access points out of the country, including the Arqin crossing into Egypt at the northern border, where families have been spending nights outside in the desert, waiting to be let in.

• Sudanese authorities and the RSF have traded accusations over the release of prison inmates in Sudan. Thousands of convicted criminals, including some sentenced to death, were held in the vast Kober prison in Khartoum, along with senior and lower-ranking officials from the Bashir regime, which was toppled four years ago.

• Cyprus’s foreign ministry spokesperson Theodoros Gotsis told the Guardian that some of the evacuees who had arrived on the first flights had spent Tuesday night in an army training camp in Larnaca. “We have activated our non-combatant national evacuation operation and as part of that all facilities at our disposal are being used,” he said ahead of a fourth RAF flight arriving at the island’s main international airport.

That’s it from me, Maya Yang, as we wrap up the blog for today. Thank you.

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly has said the UK “cannot guarantee” how many further evacuation flights will depart once the 72-hour ceasefire in Sudan expires on Thursday night, PA reports.

A Moroccan academic rescued from Sudan told how a Sudanese family sheltered her for more than a week after she was caught up in the violence that rocked the country.

Agence France-Presse reports:

She and others people who finally escaped the violence told their stories to AFP after flying into Paris Wednesday.

Fierce fighting between warring generals has killed hundreds and sparked a mass flight of people.

Doctoral student Leila Oulkebous told AFP had just reached Tuti Island to the north of the capital, where she was carrying out research for her geography thesis, when the violence broke out almost two weeks ago.

“I had barely arrived, I turned around and I see explosions, I hear loud bangs, exchanges of fire”, said 28-year-old Oulkebous.

Among a group of 245 evacuated with the help of the French embassy, she said it was a “miracle” she was still alive.

Unable to return to her hotel once the fighting started, she spent days trapped on the island, which lies at the confluence of the White and Blue Niles.

It was a Sudanese family who saved her, taking her in, hosting her for more than a week, offering home-cooked meals and reassurance.

“It is thanks to them that I was able to cope with the shock,” Oulkebous said.

As explosions and gunfire rang out across the city, she and her hosts took cover under their beds.

“I cried, I had heart palpitations, I was breathless,” Oulkebous said. “I thought it was over for me.”

“Those outside were afraid of getting hit by bullets, and those inside were afraid of the shells”.

At one point, a shell fell on a nearby house and “a whole family died”, she said.

Finally, a member of the French embassy who lived on the island, came to her rescue and it was thanks to French help that she was among those who made it to Paris Wednesday.

Six UK flights have evacuated 536 people from war-torn Sudan, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said.

The UN assistant secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and deputy emergency relief coordinator has addressed the security council, calling the situation in Sudan "a nightmare for ordinary citizens and aid workers alike.”

In an address to the UN, Joyce Msuya urged international support and doubled down on the UN’s pledge to assist civilians in the midst of the violence.

“What has been unfolding there since April 15th is a nightmare for ordinary citizens and aid workers alike. The fighting must stop…

The situation is extremely dangerous, and alarming. Madame President, our commitment to the people of Sudan remains resolute.

While we have been forced to reduce our footprint in areas where fighting is at its most intense, let there be no mistake: We are not leaving Sudan. A humanitarian leadership team will remain in the country, based in Port Sudan, to lead operations…

International humanitarian law is unequivocal. All parties to the conflict must respect civilians and civilian infrastructure, taking constant care to spare them. This includes allowing safe passage for civilians to leave areas of hostilities on a voluntary basis.”

26 Apr 202314.44 EDT

Helena Smith

A sixth RAF transport plane carrying evacuees is about to land in Cyprus, well short of the total number originally expected by this time but indicative of the pick up in pace of the rescue mission.

It is not known how many British nationals who are believed to include women and children are on the A400M plane but, as has been the case thus far, they will be processed in Larnaca before embarking on onwards journeys. Given the hour they will quite possibly stay overnight in a military training facility in Larnaca seconded by the Cypriot government for the purposes of the rescue operation.

American cititzens of Somali descent have been among the evacuees who have flown in on RAF flights. One, a father who was travelling with his daughter, described his joy at being put on the British military plane. “We are very grateful, very grateful,” he told the Guardian. “We were escorted there [the airstrip] by the military,” he said choosing not to elaborate further when US embassy officials intervened. “Tomorrow we will go to America, we’re very happy.”

A second Stansted-bound charter flight will fly out of Cyprus this evening with UK passport holders who had arrived on earlier RAF transport planes.

Nigeria has started evacuating the first batch of its nationals from Sudan, Agence France-Presse reports.

On Wednesday, the neighboring country of Sudan started evacuating around 3,500 of its nationals, mostly students.

“The evacuation of our citizens has commenced. Seven buses have left Khartoum and they are heading to Egypt,” Manzo Ezekiel, spokesman for Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) told AFP.

Foreign minister Geoffrey Onyeama told reporters 40 buses have been hired to transport Nigerian citizens to Egypt, though trip from Khartoum will take time.

“The distance is quite considerable. We need a couple of days to evacuate everybody,” he said.

Khartoum to Aswan is about 1,200 kilometres (745 miles).

The minister said Nigerian military cargo planes and private airline Air Peace will fly the citizens back to Nigeria.

Officials said there are more than 5,000 Nigerians in Sudan.

Onimode Bandele, NEMA special duties director, told AFP on Tuesday officials including embassy staff were at the collection centre to assist in the process.

“We are looking at over 5,000 Nigerians, but right now we are talking of 3,500, including students, that will be transported in buses to Aswan in Egypt,” he said.

The World Health Organization said on Wednesday that it was assessing a public health threat after fighters in Sudan took over a national laboratory holding samples of deadly disease, Agence France-Presse reports.

“We are also concerned that those occupying the lab could be accidentally exposed to pathogens stored there,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters in Geneva.

“WHO is seeking more information and conducting a risk assessment,” he added.

A day earlier, WHO’s Sudan representative Nima Saeed Abid said that the laboratory seizure had created an “extremely, extremely dangerous” situation.

“There is a huge biological risk associated with the occupation of the central public health lab,” Abid said.

The lab held samples of pathogens including measles, tuberculosis, cholera, polio and SARS CoV-2, said Olivier le Polain, WHO’s incident manager for the Sudan response told reporters, AFP reports.

Sudan’s central commission of medical laboratories added that fighters were using the lab as a base, warning that “targeting them could lead to a health and environmental catastrophe with unimaginable consequences.”

WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan said the primary risk was for any untrained people in the lab, who could “accidentally expose themselves to the pathogen.”

“But there are always obviously secondary risks that someone might leave that laboratory and infect someone else,” he said.

The White House has confirmed the death of a second American in Sudan.

Reuters reports:

A second American has died in Sudan, the White House said on Wednesday, and U.S. authorities are helping a small number of citizens seeking to leave the country during a ceasefire that has curbed fighting.

While sporadic violence continues, the ceasefire announced by the United States on Monday appears to be holding, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said.

“So we want to take advantage of that ceasefire to make sure that Americans know if they want to make the move ... we’re gonna see what we can do to get them the information they need to link up with these ground routes,” he said on CNN.

“It is still dangerous. I want to stress that. It is still dangerous, but the ceasefire seems to be holding or at least contributing to a reduction in violence.”

President Joe Biden has directed U.S. officials to help as many Americans as possible, and they were “actively facilitating the departure of a relatively small number of Americans” who wanted to leave.

U.S. officials have put that number in the dozens.

Some U.S. citizens had arrived at Port Sudan to evacuate, and the United States was continuing to support other limited evacuation efforts via ground routes, he added.

USAID has deployed teams in the region and was prepared to help provide humanitarian assistance in the event the ceasefire was extended, Kirby told reporters.

It is slightly past 6:30pm in Khartoum. Here is where things stand:

• Britain has evacuated 301 people from conflict-ridden Sudan and the aim is to reach a total of eight British evacuation flights by the end of Wednesday, the prime minister Rishi Sunak’s spokesperson said. “Four flights have now departed, carrying 301 people,” the spokesman told reporters, adding four further flights were expected over the course of Wednesday.

• Omar al-Bashir is in custody in a military hospital amid reports of RSF prison breaks, with Reuters reporting that Sudan’s army said the ousted former president was being held in a military hospital under police custody. It claimed that the formerly jailed Bashir and about 30 others were moved to the hospital on the recommendation of medical staff in Kober prison before fighting broke out in the country.

• The British Red Cross has warned that the “desperate” humanitarian need in Sudan risks becoming “catastrophic”. Sam Turner, head of east and southern African region, said: “We expect the humanitarian need will only grow in the coming days and weeks, including in neighbouring countries as people flee their homes to seek safety.”

• The AFP newswire reports that Ahmed Harun, a leading figure of the regime of deposed dictator Omar al-Bashir, has said he has escaped prison. It reports: “Harun, who led the regime’s infamous counter-insurgency campaign in the western Darfur region in the mid-2000s and is wanted for war crimes by the international criminal court, said he had broken out of the capital’s Kober prison.”

• A truce in the 11-day conflict has been undermined by Sudan’s army and paramilitary force. Reuters reports: “Sudan’s army and a paramilitary force battled on the outskirts of the capital on Wednesday, undermining a truce in an 11-day conflict that civilian groups fear could revive the influence of ousted autocrat Omar al-Bashir and his loyalists.”

• Crowds of families have been growing at Sudan’s border crossing with Egypt, desperately trying to escape their country’s violence and sometimes waiting for days with little food or shelter, witnesses said on Wednesday. People have been making exhausting drives across the desert to access points out of the country, including the Arqin crossing into Egypt at the northern border, where families have been spending nights outside in the desert, waiting to be let in.

• Sudanese authorities and the RSF have traded accusations over the release of prison inmates in Sudan. Thousands of convicted criminals, including some sentenced to death, were held in the vast Kober prison in Khartoum, along with senior and lower-ranking officials from the Bashir regime, which was toppled four years ago.

• Cyprus’s foreign ministry spokesperson Theodoros Gotsis told the Guardian that some of the evacuees who had arrived on the first flights had spent Tuesday night in an army training camp in Larnaca. “We have activated our non-combatant national evacuation operation and as part of that all facilities at our disposal are being used,” he said ahead of a fourth RAF flight arriving at the island’s main international airport.

The United Nations high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) has issued a statement after the UK home secretary’s statements made during her media rounds today.

Suella Braverman falsely claimed Sudanese asylum seekers had “various” legal ways to reach the UK through the UNHCR.

She said there was “no good reason” for those fleeing violence in Sudan to cross the Channel in small boats, and urged asylum seekers to contact the UNHCR.

She said:

If you are fleeing Sudan for humanitarian reasons, there are various mechanisms you can use, the UNHCR is present in the region and they are the right mechanism by which people should apply if they do want to seek asylum in the UK.

But the UNHCR said it was “aware” of the statement and “wished to clarify” that there is “no mechanism” for refugees to seek asylum in the UK through the organisation.

The British Red Cross has warned that the “desperate” humanitarian need in Sudan risks becoming “catastrophic”.

Sam Turner, head of east and southern African region, said:

The fighting has led to hundreds of fatalities and thousands have been injured, with many more people fearing for their lives or forced to flee their homes.

Hospitals in Khartoum are quickly running out of even basic supplies, food, water and facing electricity cuts. Staff there urgently need first aid and medical kits, stretchers and beds, as well as diesel for power generators.

The ICRC and IFRC are working closely with Sudanese Red Crescent Society volunteers who are on the ground to offer support in health facilities, with hundreds of them already providing first aid in Khartoum, Merowe and Darfur.

We expect the humanitarian need will only grow in the coming days and weeks, including in neighbouring countries as people flee their homes to seek safety.

26 Apr 202311.33 EDT

Helena Smith

A fifth plane carrying evacuees out of Sudan has just landed in Cyprus as the airlift picks up pace.

The C-130 Hercules arrived at Larnaca international airport barely three hours after an RAF plane with 79 British nationals also touched down on the airstrip. The plane is thought to be carrying roughly the same number of evacuees.

A second Stansted-bound charter flight is expected to depart Cyprus in the next hour.