Sudan: Britons are prevented from boarding the final rescue flights by the Sudanese army
By Ahmad Hadizat Omayoza, MAMOS Nigeria
Following reports that the Sudanese armed forces prevented a number of people from reaching the last rescue flights out of the war-torn country on Saturday, British citizens may have been left stranded in Sudan.
The Moderate seat of the international concerns select board of trustees told the Spectator she had gotten data that components of the Sudanese Military had impeded English nationals as they endeavored to explore the tricky course to an airbase north of Khartoum.
Alicia Kearns, MP, made the following statement an hour before the UK government’s final flight for NHS doctors and British nationals was scheduled to depart Sudan: According to messages I’ve received, individuals trying to reach the airstrip have been prevented from crossing through Khartoum by the Sudanese Armed Forces. I believe that we should investigate that to determine whether or not it is accurate. If this is the case, British citizens are stranded and unable to reach the evacuation point.
While the Sudanese Armed Forces continued to attack the positions of the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group, hundreds of people had been instructed to attempt to reach the evacuation center at the Wadi Seidna airbase, which is approximately 14 miles north of Khartoum and its twin city, Omdurman.
Kearns’ gloomy update came in the wake of new airstrikes and artillery fire in the Sudanese capital. There was also growing concern about the larger humanitarian disaster that was taking place on Sudan’s borders. Thousands of people were waiting for days in the open air to enter Egypt or had to walk hundreds of miles to cross into South Sudan.
Rana Ameen, a 23-year-old engineering student, claimed that she and five members of her family had paid the equivalent of £475 per person to reach the nearly 600-mile border crossing with Egypt. The family had to negotiate the center of the capital, where bitter fighting between two generals has forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee, in order to even get to the bus station on the outskirts of Omdurman.
