Britain to end Sudan evacuation flights

The UK will end evacuation flights from Sudan by 6pm on Saturday, the Government has said.

Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden said operations would cease following a "significant decline" in the number of British nationals seeking to flee the war-torn country.

Downing Street has so far rejected calls to widen the eligibility for evacuation beyond British passport holders and their immediate family.

It comes amid criticism of the pace of the UK evacuation, which was bought more time after a three-day extension to the ceasefire was agreed.

Concerns have been raised that the current approach could see families split up or some members left behind, with Labour calling on ministers to use the longer window to extend eligibility for evacuation before it is "too late".

Updated guidance on the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) website urged those wishing to leave Sudan to travel to the Wadi Saeedna airfield by 12pm local time on Saturday to be processed for the last flight.

'Decline in demand'

The UK began a large-scale evacuation operation from the airfield on Tuesday, with British troops assuming management of the facility from Germany after Berlin completed its own evacuations.

The Royal Air Force said it had evacuated 1,573 people since Tuesday.

The Government said: “The government has decided to end the flights tomorrow because of a decline in demand, as well as the risk of renewed conflict in Sudan.”

On Thursday Foreign Secretary James Cleverly urged stranded Britons to immediately make their way to the airfield as evacuation could be halted by fighting. "Now is the time to move because when the ceasefire ends, my ability to give the kind of limited assurance I can give now might go and we might not be able to evacuate," he said.

Passports left behind

With the embassy in Khartoum closed and British diplomats evacuated, the Government acknowledged that passports of visa applicants were left behind when diplomats evacuated the British embassy in Khartoum amid heavy fighting last weekend, but declined to say how many people were affected.

A UK Government spokesperson said: “Any documents held by the UK Government are stored securely. It is not safe to access the UK Visa Application Centre in Khartoum, which is in an area that has been at the centre of the fighting, and we are therefore not able to retrieve any passports held there currently.

“We recognise that this is an extremely difficult situation. We will continue to monitor the situation closely and the UK Government is working to identify solutions for those affected.”

The Governments of the Netherlands, Sweden and Ireland have also acknowledged that passports were left behind in their embassies when staff were evacuated.

Gunfire struck plane

On Friday gunfire struck a plane landing at the Sudanese airfield where British troops were managing evacuations, wounding a crew member, Sudan’s army said.

The Turkish evacuation plane landed safely at Wadi Seidna airbase north of the capital Khartoum with damage to its fuel supply, the Sudanese army said in a statement that blamed the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces for the incident.

The RSF denied responsibility for the incident, saying the accusation was an attempted cover up for the Sudanese military’s own actions.

“It is not true that we targeted any aircraft in the sky over Wadi Seidna in Omdurman, which is an area not under the control of our forces nor do we have any forces in its vicinity,” it said in a statement.

No further information was given on the injured crew member in the statement, which said the damaged aircraft was being repaired.

The incident threatened to halt British rescue efforts from the airfield after officials earlier warned that evacuations could be “potentially impossible” if fighting were ongoing in the vicinity.

Rival generals army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and leader of the powerful paramilitary Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, known as Hemedti, have been fighting for control of Sudan since April 15.

A 72-hour truce reached on Tuesday had enabled the evacuation flights from Wadi Seidna to continue, despite ongoing clashes in some areas.

The two sides approved another three-day truce from Friday, amid reports of ongoing fighting.

The Government is planning to continue evacuations from the Red Sea town of Port Sudan if flying into Khartoum becomes too dangerous, though this necessitates a lengthy drive through the desert from the capital.

The Royal Navy frigate HMS Lancaster is sailing to Port Sudan, where France and Saudi Arabia have already carried out sea-borne evacuations that have included Britons among the passengers.