The Sudanese Army on Saturday said it was coordinating efforts to evacuate diplomats from the United States, Britain, China and France out of the country on military airplanes, as fighting persisted in the capital, including at its main airport.
There was no information regarding the evacuations of Indian diplomats yet.
The military, as reported by Associated Press, said that army chief General Abdel Fattah Burhan had spoken to leaders of various countries requesting safe evacuations of their citizens and diplomats from Sudan, which has been roiled by bloody fighting for the past week.
More than 400 people have died in Sudan so far as countries struggle to repatriate their citizens amid deadly clashes between the Sudanese military and a powerful paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces that raged in the high-security area around the airport, a sprawling complex near the centre of the capital.
With Sudan's main international airport closed, foreign embassies have asked their citizens to simply shelter in place until they can figure out evacuation plans.
Burhan said that diplomats from Saudi Arabia had already been evacuated from Port Sudan and airlifted back to the kingdom. He said that Jordan's diplomats would soon be evacuated in the same way.
Earlier this week, the Pentagon said it was moving additional troops and equipment to a Naval base in the tiny Gulf of Aden nation of Djibouti to prepare for the possible evacuation of U.S. Embassy personnel from Sudan. On Friday, the U.S. said it had no plans for a government-coordinated evacuation of an estimated 16,000 American citizens trapped in Sudan, and continued to urge Americans in Sudan to shelter in place.
India’s contingency plan
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday conducted a high-level meeting for a review of the security situation in the violence-hit country and issued directions for the preparation of contingency plans to evacuate Indians from Sudan.
Over 3,000 Indian citizens are presently located throughout that country, the PMO said in a statement. Moreover, the Indian Embassy in Khartoum is located just opposite the airport which has seen a lot of fighting and shelling over the last few days.
The ministry of external affairs had asked Indian citizens to avoid the embassy.
MEA spokesperson Arindam Bagchi, during a media briefing, said that the situation was "very tense" in Sudan and the government is focusing on ensuring the safety and well-being of the Indian community, including working on contingency plans and possible evacuation.
"We are in readiness of taking multiple options. There are contingency plans. We are in close touch with our teams on the ground. But it will all depend on how long there is a pause in the fighting or a ceasefire; where it is happening, what is available in terms of locations where we can safely take people away," he said.
