EU's Borrell says over 1,000 Europeans evacuated from crisis-hit Sudan

European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell says more than 1,000 citizens from the bloc have been evacuated from conflict-torn Sudan over the weekend, as rival forces in the Northeast African country continue to fight for power.

"It has been a complex operation and it has been a successful operation," Borrell told reporters on Monday.

He noted that 21 diplomats from the EU's mission in Khartoum were taken out and the EU ambassador had moved outside the capital to elsewhere in Sudan.

"I want to thank France, especially for taking our people out," Borrell said, thanking what he called "combined efforts of many countries that took their nationals but also all nationals that they could pick."

An EU official had told AFP news agency that there were an estimated 1,500 EU citizens holed up in the Sudanese capital Khartoum.

Borrell's remarks come as a German air force plane carrying 101 evacuees landed in Berlin early on Monday.

France and Germany said on Monday that they evacuated nearly 700 people, without specifying how many of them were Germans or from other nationalities.

Sweden also said that all its embassy staff in Khartoum, their families and an unspecified number of other Swedes had been evacuated to nearby Djibouti.

Several evacuations have been carried out by air and others via Port Sudan on the Red Sea.

Indonesia said so far over 500 of its citizens had been evacuated to the port, and were awaiting transport to the Saudi city of Jeddah.

China, Denmark, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Sweden also said they got citizens out, while Japan said it was preparing to dispatch an evacuation team from Djibouti.

The evacuations took place as fighting calmed enough over the weekend although the two sides have not abided by the terms of a temporary truce.

Fighting broke out in Sudan in mid-April between army troops and forces from the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group.

The army and RSF jointly staged a coup in 2021 but fell out during negotiations to integrate the two groups and form a civilian government.

The fierce fighting between the warring sides has killed more than 420 people and wounded thousands more, according to UN figures.

It has also left millions of people without access to basic services, triggering a humanitarian crisis in the country, one of the poorest in the world.

Borrell said on Sunday that he had spoken to Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, the leader of RSF, to call for an "immediate ceasefire".

US evacuates embassy staff from Sudan; thousands of private citizens left behind

The United States has evacuated its embassy staff and their families from Sudan as fierce clashes continue between the country

Britons feel abandoned by govt.

As countries rush to evacuate their citizens from the conflict-hit country, some Britons stuck in Sudan said they felt abandoned by their government.

It came as the UK only evacuated its diplomats and their families from the crisis-hit country, citing "specific threats and violence directed towards diplomats."

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly warned that UK help for Briton nationals living in Sudan will remain "severely limited" until an end to the fighting.

Sam, a British businessman living in Sudan, told the BBC that news of the UK evacuation at the weekend "gave us hope, but in the absence of any information from the government this was clearly a solution for diplomats only."

He described the situation as a "nightmare for those of us left behind."

Another UK citizen in Sudan, William, who is leaving Sudan on a bus- organized by his Sudanese employer- told BBC's Newshour program, the UK government had given him "nothing" in terms of support.

"We had to basically go private, we've had absolutely nothing but nonsense from the government and not even nonsense. We've had nothing.”

The administration of US President Joe Biden also came under fire for evacuating diplomats from Sudan while leaving thousands of Americans behind.

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