UK offers extra evacuation flight from Port Sudan

The UK government has announced that it will offer an additional evacuation flight to British nationals to leave Port Sudan, with the provision that they make their own way to the British Evacuation Handling Centre established in the city before 12:00 (Sudan time GMT+2) on Monday. This is an extra flight after the UK evacuation effort from Wadi Saeedna ended on Saturday.

A UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office statement today announces that the UK government has arranged an extra evacuation flight from Port Sudan tomorrow (Monday, May 1), “extending the longest and largest evacuation effort of any Western country from Sudan”.

British nationals who wish to leave Sudan on this flight are asked to travel to the British Evacuation Handling Centre at Port Sudan International Airport on 1 May before 12:00 Sudan time tomorrow, to allow for processing, the statement urges.

“This additional exceptional flight facilitates the evacuation of a limited number of UK nationals remaining in Sudan who wish to leave. This flight follows the UK’s successful evacuation operation from Wadi Saeeda near Khartoum, which has evacuated 2,122 people on 23 flights.”

“The UK Government is no longer running evacuation flights from Wadi Saeedna airfield because of a decline in demand by British nationals, and while the situation on the ground remains volatile. The last evacuation flight departed the airfield at 22:00 Sudan time on 29 April,” the statement reads.

Radio Dabanga confirmed the flight, operated by a Royal Air Force A400M Atlas out of British airbase RAF Akrotiri in the island of Cyprus, landed at Larnaca International Airport in Cyprus, in the early hours of this morning, where the evacuees are transferred to civilian charter flights.

“Evacuation flights have ended from Wadi Saeedna but our rescue efforts continue from Port Sudan. We continue to do everything in our power to secure a long-term ceasefire, a stable transition to civilian rule and an end the violence in Sudan,” British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly says.

The British government previously said that the final evacuation flights would leave from Wadi Saeedna air base north of Khartoum, urging eligible British nationals to report to the airfield by 12:00 on Saturday.

Expanded criteria

The evacuation criteria was expanded on Saturday to include eligible non-British nationals in Sudan who are working as clinicians within the British National Health Service (NHS), and their dependants who have leave to enter the UK. Later on Saturday, The Guardian reported that members of the Sudan Armed Forces had prevented a number of people from reaching those last rescue flights.

The UK government faced criticism during the early stages of the evacuation, which prioritised embassy and diplomatic staff over private citizens. Several other countries also participated in a mass evacuation of foreigners by air from Wadi Saeedna, Port Sudan, and Djibouti, as well as by ship across the Red Sea to Jedda in Saudi Arabia, which made use of a fragile 72-hour truce called by the warring Sudan Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces militia, that expired today.