Sudan’s growing conflict sparks race to evacuate foreigners

Japan, Germany and other nations are struggling to evacuate their citizens from Sudan amid fighting between the army and a paramilitary group, while water, health care and other services are becoming increasingly hard to access.

The conflict between the military and the Rapid Support Forces that erupted at the weekend has engulfed the capital, Khartoum, and several other towns, and rendered parts of the country a no-fly zone. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 270 people have died and at least 2,600 have been injured, tallies that are set to rise as fighting continued for a sixth day on Thursday.

International efforts to broker a cease-fire have stalled, with mediators unable to access the North African country. United Nations staff within Sudan have been attacked and their homes and offices have been looted, internal U.N. reports seen by Bloomberg show.

While the Sudanese Armed Forces said 177 Egyptian Air Force members had been repatriated from the Dongola airport in four Egyptian military transport planes, other nations are still evaluating how best to access their citizens. Japan’s government said it plans to dispatch aircraft from its Air Self-Defense Force this weekend to Djibouti to evacuate about 60 of its nationals who are in Sudan, but didn’t specify when that will happen.

Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi and United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan spoke to each other on Thursday about efforts to halt any escalation in the conflict, urging negotiations to end the crisis, Egypt’s presidential spokesman said in a statement. Egypt and the UAE are two of the key power brokers in Sudan.

Egypt has historically backed the army in Sudan, and the two nations are united in opposing the construction of a massive hydropower dam in Ethiopia – the neighboring country that’s the main source of their fresh water. The UAE and Saudi Arabia have forged close ties with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces through the use of its fighters in a war in Yemen, while the group’s leader is thought to have business links in the Gulf.

The state-run Saudi Press Agency reported that the Saudi Arabia and U.K. foreign ministers discussed developments in Sudan on Thursday. They “called on both sides of the conflict in Sudan to cease fire” and provide safe passages for humanitarian operations.

Officials from the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, a regional bloc, the Arab League, African Union, Gulf states, the European Union and the U.S. have all been making calls to RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who heads the army, according to three Western diplomats briefed on the situation. The mediation efforts weren’t being coordinated and little headway had been made in bringing an end to hostilities, they said.

South Sudanese Oil Minister Puot Kang Chol said the violence had had a mild effect on the transport of materials and equipment to his nation’s oil fields, but that crude production had been maintained at 169,141 barrels a day.

“All our oil fields facilities such as the pipelines, pump stations, field-processing facilities, field-surface facilities and the export marine terminal in the Republic of Sudan are well protected” and haven’t been damaged, he told reporters in Juba, the capital.

A Sudanese doctors’ association on Thursday said that 52 of the 74 hospitals in the capital and conflict-affected states were no longer able to admit patients or administer treatment. Nine of the hospitals had been bombed and 19 had to evacuate their staff, the group said.

The U.N. said in an internal report that further attacks on its agencies’ staff had been reported and that RSF troops were terrorizing innocent civilians, foreign diplomats and aid workers.

In one instance, RSF members entered the house of a World Food Program employee in Khartoum’s Amarat district on April 18, stole his belongings and left him lying injured on the street. When the WFP sent personnel to extract the man, RSF forces fired at them and stole their mobile phones, it said.

“Threats to our teams make it impossible to operate safely and effectively in the country and carry out WFP’s critical work,” said Leni Kinzli, the WFP’s spokesperson.

The U.N. report also said that a female U.N. staff member came under intense fire and heavy shelling early Wednesday before escaping in a car to a hotel. The Bank of Khartoum in the city of el-Fasher and the premises of several U.N. agencies were also looted, it said.

While an RSF spokesperson didn’t reply to questions, the group issued a statement in which it denied targeting civilians and humanitarian workers and insisted that it respects international humanitarian law.

Led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the RSF was born out of the notorious janjaweed Arab militia that former dictator Omar al-Bashir used in the 2000s to violently quell discontent in western and central Sudan. It was formally established as a paramilitary force in 2013 and continued to counter opposition to the government.

The fighting, the culmination of a long-simmering power struggle between the army and the RSF, has upended plans for a power-sharing government that was supposed to lead Sudan to democratic elections after a 2021 coup.

Mohammed Makawi, an adviser to Dagalo, accused Burhan of pulling out of the power-sharing accord that he said had been agreed by all parties and blamed the army for scuppering plans for a cease-fire by using helicopters to attack the RSF.

There’s a risk that the conflict could spill beyond Sudan. Small-scale clashes have already broken out between Sudanese soldiers and fighters from Ethiopia’s Amhara state in the disputed al-Fashaga border region, according to two people who are aware of the situation and spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to comment.