UK Govt Tells Citizens in Sudan to Make Their Own Way to Evacuation Airfield

Heavy smoke billows above buildings in the vicinity of the Khartoum airport on April 15, 2
AFP via Getty Images
Peter Caddle

The UK government has told Britons in Sudan that they are on their own when it comes to getting to the country’s evacuation point, with the first flight having now taken passport holders out.

British armed forces are currently undertaking an operation aimed at evacuating a number of its citizens from Sudan, which has seen heavy fighting break out between government forces and a rival paramilitary group.

The move resembles a considerable development from the government’s previous position, when only embassy staff were evacuated in a military operation and other British citizens in-country were advised to shelter in place. Some claimed they felt abandoned by the government and questioned whether Khartoum was going to become a second Kabul.

Estimates put the number of UK citizens in the country at around 4,000, with British armed forces beginning an evacuation of some Britons stranded in the country from an airport near the country’s capital, Khartoum, on Tuesday.

According to a report by The Times, around 2,000 of these citizens have reportedly been in contact with the country’s Foreign Office to request help with leaving the country.

However, while the government appears willing to pull out citizens who are stuck in the country once they get to the airfield, it has reportedly told its citizens that they are on their own until they manage to reach the location, which is about 18 miles north of the city.

For many, this will likely not be an easy feat, with the country seeing sporadic fighting on Tuesday despite a U.S.-agreed ceasefire supposedly being in effect.

To make matters worse, the UK government has openly said that it remains unsure how long it will be able to keep the evacuation operation going.

“We will maintain this airhead for as long as we can but the situation does remain dangerous and volatile,” Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said. “This is an active conflict, the ceasefire has been announced, but we know there have been pockets of violence even within previous ceasefires.”

The first British evacuation flight for civilians left on Tuesday, with a reported 39 people on board heading to Cyprus, a Mediterranean island where Britain has a military base. The BBC reported a further 260 British citizens are expected on the next flight today and that families with children and the elderly and infirm are being prioritised for seats.

The UK’s Royal Marines are also on the ground, the BBC reported, and are engaged in clearing a road east through the country to facilitate evacuation to the Red Sea coast.

Britain is far from the only country currently evacuating its citizenry, with many Western countries opting to use the airport north of Khartoum to pull people out of the country that appears to be falling further and further into the grips of civil war.

The Sudanese airbase is currently said to be under the control of the German armed forces, which are reportedly facilitating its own military evacuations as well as those performed by other European nations.

Meanwhile, the United States has already managed to evacuate all its staff from its embassy in the country, despite the fact that thousands of Americans remain stranded in the war-torn African nation.

Such a move has drawn comparisons to the fall of Afghanistan in 2021, with some expressing concern that this has been the second time President Joe Biden has ordered an embassy to be abandoned.

The White House has attempted to justify the move, with national security advisor Jake Sullivan saying that the U.S. deciding to bail on an embassy just “happens from time to time”.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has insisted that out of the roughly 16,000 American citizens in the country, only “some dozen” are looking to the U.S. for help with leaving the country.

Biden administration spokesman John Kirby also insisted that the vast majority of U.S. citizens in the country were dual nationals, and do not want to leave.

Such claims have raised numerous eyebrows in the country, with the acting Director of National Intelligence, Richard Grenell, branding them as not “remotely true”.

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