Sudan, civil war. The army agrees to evacuate the foreigners, fighting continues

Diplomats and citizens of Great Britain, the United States, France and Chin are to be evacuated from Sudan by air, aboard military transport aircraft from the capital, Khartoum, the Sudanese army announced.

The commander of government forces, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, agreed to allow and secure the evacuation of these countries’ citizens from Khartoum “within the coming hours,” the army said in a statement. It added that the citizens of Saudi Arabia and Jordan they leave Sudan by plane from Port Sudan airport on the Red Sea coast, about 650 kilometers west of Stoica.

The statement by government troops came after promises by the leader of rival Rapid Support Force (RSF), Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, that he would open airports for evacuations.

General al-Burhan said the army was providing safe evacuation routes but some airports, including those in Khartoum and Darfur’s largest city of Nyala, were still embroiled in fighting.

The RSF said it was ready to partially open all airports to allow for evacuations, but it was not entirely clear who had actual control over them, the AP agency writes.

The Sudanese army said on Friday evening that it had agreed to a three-day truce in nearly a week of fighting. Earlier, the parties to the conflict had announced a ceasefire several times, but each time military operations were quickly resumed.

Despite the cease-fire, shootings broke out periodically in Khartoum on Saturday and there were also airstrikes, the BBC reports.

World Health ORganisation (WHO) reported on Friday that 413 people have been killed and 3,551 injured since the outbreak of fighting. The death toll includes at least five aid workers in the food aid-dependent country.