Battles were raging on in Sudan on the tenth day of fighting as foreign countries rushed to evacuate nationals from the African country.
Fighting was concentrated in the capital, Khartoum and the western region of Darfur, media reported on Monday.
The Sudanese army said it repelled an attack by the rival Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group on Kober Prison in Khartoum, where Sudan’s longtime ruler, Omar al-Bashir, and former officials in his movement have been held since his 2019 ouster.
Meanwhile, battles have raged in Darfur, where the aid group Doctors Without Borders said their medics in the city of El Fasher have been “overwhelmed” by the number of patients with gunshot wounds, many of them children, according to Al-Jazeera.
The UN said that so far, more than 420 people have been killed and thousands wounded since the fighting erupted on April 15.
#Sudan: Latest update from our colleague @Ahmed_Shaweesh in Gedaref:
“We managed to travel to Wadi Madani today for a rapid needs assessment. Thousands keep arriving there from Khartoum, some 160 kilometres from the capital. It is chaos.” pic.twitter.com/KexPrYhLYQ— NRC East Africa and Yemen (@NRC_EAY) April 24, 2023
The doctors union said that some hospitals have been shelled while others have been ransacked, forcing more than two-thirds of these medical facilities in Khartoum and neighboring states “out of service”.
Evacuations
On the other hand, several foreign countries managed to evacuates its national form the crisis-hit country, with others preparing to do so and deploying forces in nearby countries for this mission.
Lebanon’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that 52 Lebanese nationals were evacuated from the city of Port Sudan on board the Saudi Royal Navy ship, and they are now on their way to the Saudi city of Jeddah.
Abdullah Bou Habib, the Lebanese Foreign Minister, thanked the Saudi Kingdom for facilitating the evacuation of the Lebanese citizens, the Ministry said in a statement.
“On this occasion, Minister Abdullah Bu Habib thanked the leadership of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, represented by its Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah Al Saud, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to Sudan, and their assistants, for all the facilities and assistance provided by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and for receiving them as guests in the Kingdom in the city of Jeddah, as a prelude to their return to their homeland as soon as required,” the statement read as reported by National News Agency, NNA.
Meanwhile, evacuations were also carried out on Monday by Netherlands, Sweden, Germany, Switzerland and Egypt.
South Korea, Japan and India were preparing to evacuate their citizens later on Tuesday, according to media reports.
Earlier on Sunday, Sudan experienced a “near-total collapse” of internet and phone service, according to the monitoring service NetBlocks.
Source: Agencies
