The UK Royal Air Force on Tuesday began an operation to rescue thousands of British passport holders trapped by fighting in Sudan with a series of flights from an airfield outside the capital Khartoum.
Flight-tracking websites showed an RAF Hercules aircraft took off from near the capital at 10.21am UK time on Tuesday, heading for Akrotiri in Cyprus. The departure came hours after the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) announced a programme of flights to rescue British citizens.
The Flightradar 24 website showed the aircraft safely left Sudan’s airspace around half an hour after take-off.
Ministers faced severe criticism in parliament on Monday over the comparatively slow start to the UK’s effort to rescue citizens trapped by the outbreak of fighting between two rival generals. France, Germany and other countries have rescued hundreds of their citizens trapped in Sudan.
Neither the FCDO nor the UK prime minister’s office at Downing Street immediately confirmed how many people were on the initial flight or how many more were expected to take off during the course of Tuesday.
However, a government statement had earlier said that flights would leave from an airfield outside Khartoum “supported by senior diplomats from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office”.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wrote on Twitter that he paid tribute to the armed forces, diplomats and Border Force staff carrying out the “complex operation”.
“The UK will continue to work to end the bloodshed in Sudan and support a democratic government,” he wrote.
Britain’s effort comes after Sudan’s armed forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces agreed a 72-hour ceasefire following what US secretary of state Antony Blinken described as “intense negotiations” amid deadly clashes in the country.
On Tuesday, the Sudanese army said that following what they called “Saudi-American mediation to stop the fighting”, the armed forces had agreed to a 72-hour armistice effective from midnight.
The ceasefire was conditional on the rebels’ halting all hostilities.
The RSF said it was renewing its “absolute commitment to the declared humanitarian truce for a period of 72 hours”. It said it had agreed to the truce to “open humanitarian corridors for citizens”. Previous attempts at ceasefires since fighting started on April 15 did not hold.
However, one person in the capital Khartoum contacted on Tuesday cast doubt on the ceasefire’s stability, saying fighting was continuing.
Almost 500 people have died, mostly in Khartoum, after fighting erupted more than 10 days ago between the Sudanese armed forces, led by de facto president Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and forces commanded by his opponent, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. Known as Hemeti, Dagalo is Sudan’s vice-president and commander of the RSF.
Conditions are dire, particularly in Khartoum, with electricity and water supplies cut off and dead bodies in many streets, with civilians fleeing areas affected by fighting.
The FCDO said places on its flights would be open to holders of UK passports. “We are also working on other potential options for helping British nationals leave Sudan, including from other points of exit,” it added.
The first flight was undertaken by a C-130 Hercules transport aircraft, capable of carrying up to 150 passengers. Other flights are expected to be conducted either with A400M Atlas transport aircraft, which can carry up to 200, or much larger C-17 aircraft, which can carry up to 500. The jet-powered C-17 needs a longer landing strip than the other aircraft, both turboprops.
The UN said in a note on Tuesday that secretary-general António Guterres continued to call on the parties to the conflict to stop fighting in heavily populated areas. Guterres urged the parties to “allow civilians safe passages to access food, water and other essential supplies and evacuate from conflict-affected areas”.
UK forces established a reconnaissance mission on Monday evening after landing an aircraft at Port Sudan, on the country’s Red Sea coast. A UK frigate, HMS Lancaster, is in the Red Sea ready to help with the effort if required.
The UK, which has strong historic ties with Sudan, faces one of the biggest challenges of any overseas government in its rescue effort because of the number of Britons currently in the country. Other European countries have mostly had to rescue only a few hundred nationals.
British embassy staff were successfully flown out, along with their dependants, over the weekend. The success of that effort raised questions about why there was no parallel effort to help UK citizens.
A debate in the House of Commons on Monday heard that about 2,000 UK citizens had been in touch with diplomatic staff to register for potential rescue from Sudan.
