UK evacuates more than 300 people from Sudan as part of large-scale operation
- Britain began the evacuation of its citizens amid violence and chaos; government estimates there are about 4,000 Britons stuck in Sudan
- A spokesperson for PM Rishi Sunak says the UK will keep running flights in the ‘fast-moving situation … time-limited ceasefire’
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, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s spokesman said.
Sunak told lawmakers that a large-scale evacuation of British nationals was under way to help Britons stranded in the North African country.
His spokesman said that four flights had departed Sudan and another was being loaded as of noon GMT, and that Britain aimed to continue evacuation flights over the coming days.
“Four flights have now departed, carrying 301 people,” the spokesman told reporters, adding four further flights were expected over the course of Wednesday.
“We intend to keep running the evacuation flights … It is a fast moving situation and it is something kept under close review bearing in mind there is a time-limited ceasefire.”
A passenger plane belonging to Britain’s royal Air Force with about 40 civilians on board landed on the island of Cyprus on Tuesday, a spokesperson for Cyprus’s foreign ministry said late evening.
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US, UK and Spain among nations evacuating diplomats and citizens from Sudan as fighting continues
The spokesman said that subsequent flights had been full or close to full. While most people on the flights were British nationals, the spokesman gave no breakdown of the nationalities on board, saying other nationalities might have been offered seats on a flight-by-flight basis.
Britain began a large-scale evacuation of its citizens on Tuesday, following other nations in pulling people out of Sudan where violent clashes between the army and a paramilitary group called Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have killed hundreds of people and stranded foreigners.
The government has estimated that around 4,000 Britons were stuck in Sudan.
