Around 2,000 people have arrived in Saudi Arabia’s coastal city of Jeddah, after being evacuated amid chaotic scenes from Port Sudan in eastern Sudan.
Earlier a Chinese military ship with nearly 500 Chinese and Pakistani nationals also made the 12-hour sea crossing.
People from more than 70 countries are now reported to have reached Jeddah from Port Sudan.
Most are expected to be flown home via charter flights arranged by their governments within the next few days.
Source: BBC
Muammar Ali has seen his three-month old baby daughter, Wahaj, for the first time, after his family was able to join him in the UK from Sudan.
Fighting erupted in the capital Khartoum two weeks ago due to a power struggle within the Sudan’s military leadership.
Countries have been trying to rescue their citizens, with the latest evacuations happening during a US-brokered ceasefire, which has not held.
Source: BBC
Florent Ibenge, coach of leading Sudanese football club Al-Hilal SC, went to bed on Friday a fortnight ago thinking about his team’s next match in the battle for the league title, but woke up to find himself in a war zone.
“We could hear gunfire… I was in disbelief,” he told the BBC.
His home was right in the middle of where the conflict began in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum – he lived in between the presidential palace and the airport that had earlier been taken by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group.
He was stuck and soon realised he was not able to reach his 14-year-old daughter, who had left the house early on Saturday morning to go swimming with her school club.
“She is training in a hotel that is one minute away from the airport. And from my house, I could see the air force shooting towards the airport. It was horrible because you can’t move, you can’t go and get your daughter.”
They would not be reunited for a whole week, on the tarmac of the military airport, as they awaited evacuation.
Once he realised she was relatively safe in the hotel and had food, Ibenge started to turn his fatherly attention to his team and his staff.
But his calm and composed nature was truly put to the test.
“I first managed to get my assistant goalkeeping coach out of the area.
“Then a Burundian couple got in touch with my wife, asking if they could come over because fighters had entered their home.
“They had forced their way into his house and put a gun to his head while he was with his wife and his four-month-old baby.
“It was horrible. They stayed there for three days before they got an opportunity to escape.
“He finally managed to call my wife and we told them to come straight away. When he arrived, he didn’t even sit down, he slumped down there for hours. It was really horrible.”
‘Hard to keep everyone positive’
A comforting thought was to know a majority of his players had stayed overnight within the compound of the stadium in Omdurman, just over the Nile from Khartoum. They had played on Friday and were due to play again there on Sunday.
“The hardest part is to find the words to keep everyone positive,” Ibenge said.
As a French citizen, the coach was able to get help from France’s embassy and he and his family were part of the first convoy out of Sudan.
But everyone contributed to the effort to get people out, he said.
“I was asked if I could help find buses to transport everyone to the evacuation point. We were told it was for Port Sudan but, at the last minute, they redirected us to the military airport. “
The RSF had agreed to escort foreign citizens to their point of departure.
Two days before the day they were due to leave, his daughter, who was still in the hotel where she had had swimming practice, boarded an RSF jeep. It would take her through the streets of Khartoum to the French embassy.
“[It was] a great relief,” Ibenge said, “until you realise that the air force planes could have opened fire on that jeep and then you are horrified.”
After being flown out of Sudan, the family spent two days in a military base in Djibouti before landing in Paris on Wednesday.
Despite the relief, Ibenge is not happy.
“We are still worried about all the people we left behind. Starting with my players and all the Sudanese people who are very nice people,” the coach said.
All the non-Sudanese who played for the club have managed to leave and are now at the Egyptian border waiting for visas.
“As soon as they arrive on the other side, I will join them and my assistants in Cairo. We’ll set up a base camp there.”
Ibenge said he talks with his players every day.
And despite the ordeal everyone is going through, he is hoping they will be able to play their next Arab Club Champions Cup fixture against Tunisian club CS Sfaxien, originally scheduled for May.
“We don’t play an individual sport. We play a collective sport and sometimes the therapy comes through the fact of being in a group. It can be a therapy for all of us to get together and do what we love.”
The Sudanese players might decide to stay in their home country, so Ibenge will have to reassess the composition of his team as well as his players’ mental fitness when he is reunited with them. But his positivity keeps on driving him forward.
“I lived through this for seven days, others in the Democratic Republic of Congo for example, have lived through this for decades. You can never give up. There are always better days.”
Source: BBC
The UK government has told NHS doctors in Sudan they can now catch evacuation flights out of the country, in a U-turn on its previous policy.
More than 20 NHS medics were initially told they could not board flights because they were not British nationals – although they have UK work permits.
The government confirmed to the BBC that non-Britons in Sudan working for the NHS could be evacuated.
The change comes just hours before the UK’s final rescue flights out of Sudan.
Fighting erupted in capital Khartoum two weeks ago due to a power struggle within the Sudan’s military leadership.
A UK government spokesperson told the BBC the evacuation criteria had been extended to non-British nationals in Sudan working “as clinicians within the NHS, and their dependents who have leave to enter the UK”.
The spokesperson added that the government was working with partners to “maintain the ceasefire and bring an end to fighting – the single most important thing we can do to ensure the safety of British nationals and others in Sudan”.
Countries have been frantically rescuing their citizens, with the latest evacuations happening during a US-brokered ceasefire, which has not held.
On Friday evening, the US also reportedly started evacuating civilians on buses – with a convoy carrying some 300 people leaving Khartoum and heading towards the coastal city of Port Sudan, according to US media. It appears to be the first evacuation of non-diplomat Americans from Sudan.
British nationals and the NHS doctors hoping to leave Sudan had until midday local time (11:00 BST) to reach the Wadi Seidna airfield.
They were instructed to make their own way to the airfield.
The Ministry of Defence has told the BBC flights will continue to leave Sudan until all those people who registered at the airfield before the deadline have been evacuated.
More than 1,650 people have been evacuated from Khartoum and more than 1,000 have been flown to the UK, it added.
The Foreign Office has also announced consular support in the coastal city of Port Sudan, with an office established at the Coral Hotel.
It advised British nationals to visit the team for help or call the 24-hour helpline on +441908 516 666.
The Foreign Office said the last flights marked “the end of a successful evacuation operation” and it was winding up evacuations due to “declining demand for seats”.
It added that the UK has “set up a limited consular presence at Port Sudan to signpost British nationals to available options for departure”.
Stories emerged this week of National Health Service doctors being turned away from the airport in Khartoum – and the Foreign Office repeatedly told the BBC that only British passport holders and their dependents were able to get on the flights.
They insisted anyone with a work permit was welcome in the UK, but must make their own way there.
On Friday evening, a message was circulated by the Department of Health and Social Care to NHS doctors in Sudan, telling them to make their way to Wadi Seidna airfield, just north of the capital, for evacuation.
The text, seen by the BBC, tells any medical staff with leave to remain to bring dependents and proof of NHS employment.
The change comes after the case of Sudanese doctor Dr Abdulrahman Babiker, who was initially refused a place on a British evacuation, made headlines.
Dr Babiker landed back in the UK on Saturday after he was successfully evacuated on a flight to Cyprus which landed there on Friday evening.
He told the BBC he was “really glad” that the UK government had changed its guidance – but said there was “just one day only” for his colleagues in Sudan to make the last flights.
After he landed in Cyprus, he said he had “mixed feelings”, saying: “I am happy that I am finally in a safe place, away from a war and on my way back to the UK. At the same time I feel down that my family (my dad, mum, brother and sister) are still endangered by this deadly fighting in my country.
“I am thinking about them now and trying to work out what I can do to help them escape the danger zone.”
Speaking to the BBC from Stansted Airport after finally making it home, Dr Babiker thanked the journalists who highlighted the position of NHS doctors trapped in Sudan and the UK government for changing evacuation guidance, as well as colleagues for their support.
The Manchester Royal Infirmary doctor is planning to fly to the UK later and is due back at work on Tuesday.
The British Medical Association had called on the government to “ensure all NHS doctors, and their families, including those on UK visas are evacuated”.
Those comments were echoed by Labour shadow foreign secretary David Lammy, who said if there was a reduced demand for evacuation flights while the ceasefire is ongoing, then the government should widen its criteria to include British residents trying to flee Sudan.
He added: “It cannot be right for the government to clap for NHS doctors one day and then turn them away from evacuation flights out of a conflict zone the next.”
The UK’s evacuations to the RAF base in Cyprus began last Tuesday.
Other countries have also been evacuating their citizens, and the UN refugee agency said around 33,000 refugees fled from Khartoum to refugee camps in Sudan’s White Nile state.
Heavy fighting between the Sudanese army and its rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed at least 512 people, and injured almost 4,200.
Missiles and heavy weaponry has also damaged the country’s key infrastructure, including access to clean water and the internet. Health officials say most hospitals in conflict areas are not functioning, and more than 60% of health facilities in the capital, Khartoum, are inactive.
Despite the ceasefire, fighting has not come to a halt and eyewitness have reported fighting in Khartoum, the western Darfur region and other provinces.
The truce – due to end at midnight local time on Thursday (23:00 BST) – was extended for a further 72 hours.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken – who mediated talks alongside neighbouring countries, the UK and UN – said that while the ceasefire was imperfect, it had reduced violence.
The UK Foreign Office called the evacuation effort “the longest and largest evacuation effort of any Western country”.
Source: BBC
The 30th edition of Arabian Travel Market Dubai 2023 will take place on 1 – 4 May, with participation of Syria
Tourism Ministry posted on Facebook page that the ministry along with a group of tourist institutions from the private and public sectors will participate in the exhibition.
Nearly 2,000 representatives from more than 150 countries will participate in the expo.
Source: Syrian Arab News Agency
President Bashar al-Assad received Saturday Special Envoy of the Chinese Government on the Middle East Zhai Jun.
The central topic between the President al-Assad and Zhai Jun was the common perceptions of the bilateral relationship between Syria and China within the larger landscape of China’s relationship with the countries of the Middle East and its vital role throughout this region.
President al-Assad pointed out that the most significant positive change in the world has been the Chinese role, which is increasing in a calm and balanced manner, and that this role has become a new model in politics, economy and culture, especially as it is based on the principle of achieving stability, peace and profit for all.
President al-Assad noted that the entire world today needs the Chinese presence politically and economically to rebalance the global situation, taking into account the Russian-Chinese relations and the BRICS alliance in terms of constituting a strong international space capable of creating an international order. multipolar.
President al-Assad praised the Chinese mediation that culminated in the rapprochement and improvement of relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which will have a positive impact on the stability of the entire Middle East region.
His excellency underlined the importance of the Belt and Road Initiative aimed at achieving development and economic cooperation.
President al-Assad stressed that the confrontation has been economic in the first place, which makes it increasingly necessary to release the US dollar in transactions, and that BRICS countries can play a leading role in this area, as well as the option of adopting the Chinese yuan for trade transactions between countries.
President al-Assad said that Syria does not forget that Beijing has been by its side during the war years to defend its sovereignty in accordance with international law and the United Nations Charter, and we appreciate all the assistance provided by Beijing during the earthquake catastrophe.
President al-Assad conveyed his greetings to the Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Chinese people.
For his part, the special envoy Zhai Jun conveyed to President al-Assad the greetings of the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, and his keenness to achieve greater results at the level of bilateral relations.
He stressed that China views relations with Syria from a strategic perspective and within the framework of a comprehensive vision for the region.
Zhai Jun expressed his country’s satisfaction with the victory achieved by the Syrian people in their battle against terrorism and considered that it is a victory for all countries that defend their sovereignty and dignity.
He said that Beijing will support Syria with words and deeds in international forums in defense of truth and justice, and support its battle against hegemony, terrorism and external interference
He expressed his country’s support for the positive developments taking place in the rapprochement between Syria and the Arab countries.
Source: Syrian Arab News Agency
