Masses making desperate attempts to flee Sudan

After battling there for more than a week, the Red Cross reports that people are attempting to leave Sudan in a desperate manner.

According to spokeswoman Alyona Synenko, the situation was now “untenable” for people who were left without food or water, and some hospitals had stopped operating.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken reported that robberies and looting had occurred on consignments leaving Khartoum’s city.

Speaking as they departed Khartoum, some mentioned bodies that were left lying in the street.

“We saw bodies everywhere; there is absolutely no security, so nobody dares go collect them; nonetheless, there is also complete wreckage. Stefano Rebora, the head of an Italian NGO, told the BBC that “everything is just devastated.”

All exit routes from the six million-person city of Khartoum, according to South African envoy Clayson Monyela, are “risky and dangerous”.

He told, “The airport is still blocked, and the battle is still going on. He reaffirmed the need for a cease-fire so that people could flee and aid could enter.

According to monitoring organization NetBlocks, connection in Sudan was experiencing a “internet blackout” and was only 2% of normal levels. Since Sunday night, Khartoum has been without internet service.

However, not all areas of the capital have yet seen the restoration of water and electricity.
A student from Nigeria told: “The taps are outside in street and that’s very scary part – sometimes we are going out to get water but there is shooting or explosions going on, so we just have to run there and get the water and come back.”

Many nations have evacuated their civilian populations, and many of others have undertaken perilous escapes.

Some areas of the city center are completely desolate since so many people who have left Khartoum have moved to other regions of the nation where they have family links.

Others have taken a bus north to Egypt or south.

Officials in the neighboring South Sudan claimed that in addition to the Sudan and South Sudan countries, the about 10,000 refugees who had just come were also from Eritrea, Kenya, and Uganda.

Several nations have intensified their attempts to get citizens and officials out of Khartoum.

By Monday, roughly 1,100 citizens of the European Union had been removed from Sudan, a diplomatic source for the EU told the media. The bloc estimated that when the violence started, there were roughly 1,700 EU citizens in Sudan.

Less than 100 individuals were transported by helicopter on Sunday, according to the US, in a “fast and clean” operation. Currently closed, the American embassy in Khartoum tweets that it is unsafe for the authorities to evacuate individual US citizens.

British diplomats and their families were evacuated out of the country by the UK government. There are “severely limited” options, according to foreign minister James Cleverly, for evacuating remaining Britons. Canada’s diplomatic personnel have left.

On Sunday, Turkey, a significant participant in Sudan, started road evacuation preparations from the southern city of Wad Medani, but plans from one area in Khartoum were delayed because of an explosion nearby.

More than 150 persons were transported to Saudi Arabia by boat, predominantly Gulf nationals but also Egyptians, Pakistanis, and Canadians.

A Sierra Leonean evacuee informed news agency that long lines of UN cars and buses were observed leaving Khartoum on Sunday, traveling east towards Port Sudan on Red Sea and transporting “citizens from all over the world.”

However, many of the foreigners now stranded in Khartoum are students from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.

The war has also had a significant negative impact on Darfur’s western region, where the RSF first appeared.

Up to 20,000 people, largely women and children, have reportedly fled Sudan in search of safety in Chad, which is on the other side of Darfur, according to a UN warning.

However, some semblance of normalcy has returned in other sections of the nation.

There have been fewer gunshots and explosives in Omdurman than in previous days, probably to allow for the evacuation of civilians over the Nile from Khartoum. There is no longer active fighting outside the army headquarters.

Women and children have as a result come out in the open for the first time since hostilities began more than a week ago, visiting neighbors and going to marketplaces where some basic goods like wheat and oil are still available. The few bakeries that are still open are surrounded by lengthy lines.

According to the most recent figures from the World Health Organization, the war has claimed the lives of over 400 people and injured thousands more. The real death toll, though, is likely far higher.

A number of apparent cease-fires were later broken, including the three-day break for the Muslim festival of Eid al-Fitr, which began on Friday.

The violence, according to the UN’s World Food Programme, could cause millions more Sudanese to go hungry in a nation where a third of the population already faces food insecurity.