Sudan crisis live: fragile ceasefire extended for 72 hours as scramble to evacuate continues

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Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has issued a statement this morning through their social media channels which accuses the Sudanese army of continuing to break the ceasefire. It writes, in part:

The coup leaders of the armed forces and the remnants of the former regime violated the truce since the early morning by attacking the positions of our forces with aircraft and cannon in both the base of Jabal Awlia and Omdurman, and the planes are still flying … which causes obstruction of the movement of diplomatic missions that are working to evacuate their nationals.

In this regard, we note that the continuous violations of the truce by the putschists caused confusion among citizens, who relied heavily on the humanitarian truce to move to safe places and meet their basic needs. We would like to draw the attention of the parties to the initiative to these violations of the humanitarian truce.

The statement is presented in translation. The claims have not been independently verified.

The RSF was founded by former dictatorial ruler Omar al-Bashir to crush a rebellion in Darfur that began more than 20 years ago. The RSF was also known by the name of Janjaweed, which became associated with widespread atrocities.

In 2013, Bashir transformed the Janjaweed into a semi-organised paramilitary force and gave their leaders military ranks before deploying them to crush a rebellion in South Darfur, and then dispatching many to fight in the war in Yemen, and later Libya.

The RSF, led by Gen Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, also known as Hemedti, and the regular military forces under Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan cooperated to oust Bashir in 2019. The latest round of clashes erupted in the middle of April amid an apparent power struggle between the two factions of the military regime.

Reuters has a rundown this morning of some of the international efforts to evacuate foreign nationals from Sudan so far:

• Egypt has evacuated a total of 5327 Egyptians, 2648 of which were evacuated on Thursday. In a separate statement on Thursday, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said some 16,000 people have crossed from Sudan to Egypt, including 14,000 Sudanese citizens.

• Germany’s evacuation mission had brought a total of 500 people from more than 30 countries to safety, including Belgian, British, Dutch, Jordanian and US citizens as well as Germans.

• France has so far evacuated a total of 936 people from Sudan. The foreign ministry said those evacuated included not only French nationals but also Britons, Americans, Canadians, Ethiopians, Dutch, Italians and Swedes.

A Saudi navy ship docks in Jeddah, carrying civilians of different nationalities onboard after being evacuated by Saudi Arabia. Photograph: Saudi Press Agency/Reuters

• Italy’s military planes flying from Djibouti evacuated 83 Italians and 13 others, including children and the Italian ambassador. Foreign minister Antonio Tajani said some Italian NGO workers and missionaries had decided to stay in Sudan.

• The Netherlands’ foreign minister Wopke Hoekstra said about 100 Dutch nationals have been evacuated from Sudan since Sunday. Half left on four Dutch evacuation flights to Jordan, which also carried about 70 people from 14 other countries.

• US forces had evacuated American and some foreign diplomats on Saturday.

• Russia has not yet announced any evacuation of its embassy or its nationals from Khartoum.

• Japan’s prime minister Fumio Kishida said all Japanese people who wished to leave have been evacuated. Forty-five left on Monday night on a Japanese military flight, and eight others left with the help of France and other groups, he said.

• Switzerland has already shut its embassy and evacuated all Swiss staff and their families.

• China said most Chinese nationals have been safely evacuated in groups to neighbouring countries. The defence ministry deployed naval ships to pick up and evacuate citizens on Wednesday.

People line up for checks at Port Sudan as the Chinese navy dispatched ships for an evacuation mission. Photograph: Reuters

• India said more than 1,200 Indians evacuated from Sudan had arrived in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia as of Thursday, and would soon be repatriated to India.

• Indonesia has received nearly 400 people out of 900 Indonesians who have been evacuated from Sudan, nearly 400 arrived back in Indonesia on Friday morning, the foreign ministry said.

Indonesian citizens walk to a bus upon arrival at Soekarno-Hatta international airport in Tangerang, Indonesia. Photograph: Achmad Ibrahim/AP

• Canada conducted its first evacuation operation in Sudan on Thursday, airlifting over 100 hundred people, including Canadians and other nationals. There are about 1,800 Canadians in Sudan, out of which about 700 have requested assistance from the foreign ministry.

• Ukraine said it had rescued 87 of its citizens – most of them pilots, aircraft technicians and their families – among a total of 138 civilians, who also included citizens of Georgia and Peru.

• Kenya’s foreign affairs ministry said on Thursday the government had evacuated 342 people who had arrived in Jeddah in Saudi Arabia from Port Sudan.

• South Africa said it expected the last 12 of its nationals known to be in Sudan to have left on Tuesday.

Ruth Michaelson and Pjotr Sauer have this report for the Guardian today:

Securing a lasting ceasefire in Sudan is essential in order to limit the opportunity for malign outside actors to intervene in the fighting on a greater scale, former diplomats and analysts have said.

“The longer this goes on, the more likely it is that outside actors will start trying to back one general or another, hyper-charging this fight and turning it into a similar struggle to the situation in Libya or Syria,” said Jeffrey Feltman, a longtime diplomat and former US special envoy for the Horn of Africa.

“Sudan for many years was seen as a key area for food security in different Gulf states, without any regard for the civilian population who live there,” said Kristian Ulrichsen of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

“Yet it’s seen as ripe for dealmaking at the very top level, so we’ve seen the empowerment and enrichment of state and non-state actors like Hemedti who have grown rich on these connections; in Hemedti’s case goldmining, with much of that gold shipped to the UAE for refining and then onward sales. It’s another critical node in the economic network that enabled him to become so influential.”

Read more of Ruth Michaelson and Pjotr Sauer’s report here: Malign actors could ‘hyper-charge’ Sudan conflict, say ex-envoys

Overnight, Alicia Kearns, the British Conservative MP who is chair of the foreign select committee in the House of Commons in London, has tweeted her relief at the extension of the ceasefire. She said:

This is a great relief, and gives some hope that a diplomatic solution may be found to prevent a resumption of violence long term.

Here is a reminder, if you need it, of the evacuation route being operated by the UK. Planes are using RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus as a base to head for Wadi Seidna airstrip north of Khartoum in Sudan. Evacuees are then being carried back to Larnaca international airport, where they are being put on chartered planes to London Stansted. The RAF planes then return to Akrotiri to refuel, before making the journey again.

British evacuation flights expected to continue today

Alistair Bunkall, the Sky News Middle East correspondent, has reported from Larnaca airport that British evacuation flights are expected to continue today. He told viewers:

More flights have come in overnight, and they expect more flights to come into Cyprus today. So that ceasefire extension has given them a longer window in which trying to get people out.

Yesterday, they were very much operating on the basis that if the ceasefire didn’t hold, and fighting resumed, then they had to try and scramble to get as many people on to aircraft in the few hours that they had.

Dan Sabbagh , Patrick Wintour and Alexandra Topping have our main overnight report on the latest situation in Sudan:

Britain said it had evacuated nearly 900 people from Sudan and was hoping to continue evacuation flights overnight, although violence flared as the country’s warring factions agreed to extend a ceasefire.

The foreign secretary was under pressure over a refusal to allow Britons trying to flee to take elderly parents with them, amid fears that renewed fighting between the army and paramilitaries could halt the airlift at any time.

James Cleverly told MPs on Thursday that the UK “will endeavour” to keep going with flights, but he advised Britons to try to make a risky journey to the airfield north of Khartoum from where the airlift was being conducted immediately.

A total of 897 people had been evacuated by the RAF by 6pm on Thursday, with two more flights leaving Sudan for a stopover in Cyprus during the day. The Foreign Office said “further flights” would be coming.

Read more here: UK says nearly 900 evacuated from Sudan amid hopes of further flights

Welcome and open summary …

Welcome to our continued live coverage of the crisis in Sudan, where the two warring factions have agreed to extend the fragile and partially observed ceasefire that was due to expire late on Thursday night for another 72 hours.

There have been multiple truce efforts since fighting broke out on 15 April between Sudan’s army led by Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary RSF commanded by his deputy-turned-rival, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, also known as Hemedti. All have ultimately failed so far.

But foreign representatives involved in seeking to quell the fighting have welcomed the extended ceasefire deal and urged full implementation.

In a joint statement, AFP reports the African Union, the United Nations, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Britain and the US applauded the two sides’ “readiness to engage in dialogue toward establishing a more durable cessation of hostilities and ensuring unimpeded humanitarian access”.

Despite the ceasefire, on Thursday warplanes flew over the capital’s northern suburbs as fighters on the ground exchanged artillery and heavy machine-gun fire, witnesses said. Fighting was also observed to have intensified in the Darfur region.

International efforts to evacuate foreign nationals stranded in Sudan continue.

I’m Martin Belam, and I will be bringing you rolling coverage of further developments today. You can get in touch with me at martin.belam@theguardian.com