The UK government is exploring “all routes” in an attempt to get British nationals out of Sudan, Downing Street has said.
More than 420 people have been killed in a bloody conflict between the Sudanese army and a powerful paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces, which broke out nine days ago.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Sunday that the British military had evacuated UK diplomats and their families from the country.
But the government has come under mounting pressure to evacuate British nationals trapped in the war-torn country.
The prime minister’s official spokesman told reporters on Monday: “Obviously the safety of remaining British nationals is our utmost priority. We recognise it’s going to be a worrying and distressing time for those who are trapped by the fighting, so that’s why we are urgently exploring all routes for British nationals to leave Sudan obviously should they wish to.
“We’re working around the clock to escort those who are remaining and the embassy team will be working from a neighbouring country.”
‘Clear-Cut Plan’ Called For
Sunak said on Sunday that the UK armed forces had completed a “complex and rapid evacuation” of British diplomats and their families from Sudan, amid “a significant escalation in violence and threats to embassy staff.”Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said the operation involved more than 1,200 personnel from the British Army, Royal Navy, and the Royal Air Force.
Alicia Kearns, the Conservative chairwoman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Commons, said on Monday that the government’s focus must shift to getting British nationals out of Sudan.
She told BBC Radio 4’s “Today” programme, “We have to get our people out, and I really hope that is the current focus because there is no imminent sign of a ceasefire.”
She said evacuations would be “enormously difficult,” with only one airstrip being used.
If evacuation is not feasible because of the danger, she said, “then we have a moral obligation to tell British nationals as soon as possible that that is the judgment that has been made, because they then need to be able to make their own decisions.”
Tobias Ellwood, another Conservative MP who chairs the Commons Defence Committee, called for a “clear-cut plan” to get British passport-holders out of Sudan.
“If that plan does not emerge today, then individuals will then lose faith and then start making their own way back,” he told GB News, saying that could lead to “some very difficult situations.”
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer also urged the government take swift action.
He told reporters on Monday: “There’s deep concern about those that are still there and in fear and real concern about what’s going to happen to them. I do want the government to do everything it can at pace to help them get out of that difficult situation.”
Cobra Meetings
According to the government, Foreign Secretary James Cleverly chaired a sixth Cobra session—an emergency response committee made up of ministers, civil servants, and others—on the conflict late on Sunday.A further Cobra meeting to discuss the Sudan crisis is to take place on Monday, Downing Street said.
Foreign Office minister Andrew Mitchell said on Monday that the government is doing everything possible to get British nationals out of Sudan.
“We will do everything we can, and I mean everything, to get our British citizens out,” he told Sky News. “Our intention always has been to facilitate the exit of our own citizens as soon as it is safe to do so.”
Mitchell could not say when that might happen, but said “every single option is being explored in detail.”
Asked why diplomats, but not citizens, were evacuated, he said that the government has “a specific duty of care, a legal duty of care” to its staff and diplomats, and that there had been “a very specific threat to the diplomatic community” in Khartoum.
At an event hosted by the Royal African Society on Monday, Mitchell said the government has been in “crisis mode” since the conflict broke out in Sudan.
“There is no doubt at all that the challenge of security in Africa, made infinitely worse by what’s happening in Sudan, is a very big challenge indeed,” he said.
Mitchell added, “We have 200 officials across government working together seamlessly in a crisis centre in the Foreign Office and that has been the position now for nearly a week.”
