(Updates with evacuations)
By Khalid Abdelaziz and Nafisa Eltahir
KHARTOUM, April 22 (Reuters) –
Some foreign nationals began being evacuated from Sudan on Saturday following a week of fighting that has killed hundreds of civilians, as the army launched airstrikes against a rival paramilitary force during fighting in central Khartoum.
The bloody onslaught of urban warfare has trapped many people in the Sudanese capital. The airport has been the target of repeated attacks and residents have been unable to leave their homes or leave the city for safer areas.
The United Nations and several countries have urged rival military leaders to respect declared ceasefires, which in most cases have been ignored, and to open safe passages for both fleeing civilians and aid supplies.
With the airport closed and the skies unsafe, thousands of foreigners – including embassy staff, aid workers and students in Khartoum and other places in Africa’s third-largest country – have also not been able to leave.
The army declared early Saturday that it would provide safe evacuation routes for citizens of the United States, Britain, France and China, while Saudi Arabia and Jordan were already evacuating through Port Sudan on the Red Sea. Airports in Khartoum and Nyala, Darfur’s largest city, were experiencing problems, he added.
A foreign diplomat who asked not to be named said some of the diplomatic staff in Khartoum expected to be evacuated by air from Port Sudan in the next two days.
The US embassy warned its citizens that there was “incomplete information” about the convoys leaving Khartoum and that the trips would be at their own risk.
The army and the paramilitary FAR, which are waging a deadly struggle for power throughout the country, had issued separate statements announcing that they would maintain a three-day ceasefire starting Friday, on the occasion of the Islamic holiday of Eid. al-Fitr.
Sudan’s sudden warlike collapse a week ago has derailed plans to restore civilian rule, brought an already impoverished country to the brink of humanitarian catastrophe and threatens a broader conflict that could draw in foreign powers.
There are no signs yet that either side can secure a quick victory or is willing to back down and talk. The army has air power, but the FAR is widely deployed in urban areas, including around key installations in central Khartoum. (Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz in Khartoum and Nafisa Eltahir in Cairo Edited in Spanish by Javier López de Lérida)
Source: Ambito
