British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has held an emergency meeting to discuss assistance for the British nationals trapped in Sudan as fighting continues in the African country.
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, FCDO, disclosed that the meeting was attended by Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and Africa minister Andrew Mitchell.
Government officials said they are “doing everything possible” to support those still inside the country’s capital, Khartoum.
It comes after the Sudanese army said it was co-ordinating efforts to evacuate American, British, Chinese, and French citizens and diplomats from Sudan on military aircraft as bloody fighting entered its second week.
The FCDO has not confirmed the reports but the PA news agency understands an evacuation is not imminent.
The Sudanese army is battling a powerful rival paramilitary in and around Khartoum.
Prospects of airlifting people out of Sudan have been complicated by the fact most major airports in the country have become battlegrounds and movement out of the capital has proven dangerous.
A UK government spokesman said: “We recognise that the situation is extremely concerning for British nationals trapped by the fighting in Sudan.
“We are doing everything possible to support British nationals and diplomatic staff in Khartoum, and the Ministry of Defence is working with the Foreign Office to prepare for a number of contingencies.”
Those held up in Sudan are advised to register with the FCDO and to stay indoors, with skirmishes taking place even in residential areas.
In the U.S., the Pentagon said earlier this week it was moving additional troops and equipment to a naval base in the tiny Gulf of Aden nation of Djibouti to prepare for the evacuation of U.S. embassy personnel.
But the White House said on Friday that it had no plans for a government co-ordinated evacuation of an estimated 16,000 American citizens trapped in Sudan.
Sunak on Friday spoke with the president of Djibouti, Ismail Omar Guelleh.
While no mention of using the nation’s airbases was made in the readout from Downing Street, a No 10 spokesman said the two leaders agreed to “continue to co-ordinate efforts to de-escalate the violence and protect civilians, including our citizens.”
There are no signs of the trouble abating as yet.
Even as the warring sides said on Friday that they had agreed to a ceasefire for the three-day Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, explosions and gunfire rang out across Khartoum on Saturday.
Two ceasefire attempts earlier this week also rapidly collapsed.
Britain has historic ties to Sudan. In an unusual arrangement, Britain and Egypt jointly ruled Sudan from 1899 until it gained independence in 1956, but Sudan is not among the group of 56 Commonwealth nations.
Sudan’s de facto president and commander-in-chief of the army, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has agreed to the evacuation of citizens and diplomatic representatives from the embattled country.
An army spokesman said in a statement on Saturday that the United States, Britain, France and China would begin evacuating from the capital Khartoum “in the coming hours” using military transport aircraft.
Al-Burhan has pledged to “facilitate and guarantee” the evacuation and to provide the countries with “the necessary support to ensure this,” the spokesman said.
A Saudi Arabian delegation has already been evacuated from the eastern city of Port Sudan, he said, adding that a Jordanian delegation was also to be flown out of Port Sudan later on Saturday.
The army was in control of all airports in the country except those in Khartoum and the town of Njala in the South Dafur region, al-Burhan told Arabic television station Al-Arabiya.
The country’s de facto president said he remained in control of the army and would only let his rival and former deputy Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, the leader of the powerful paramilitary group RSF, get away “in a coffin.”
Fighting broke out in Sudan about a week ago between the country’s two most powerful generals and their respective military units.
The World Health Organisation said 413 people have lost their lives and more than 3,500 have been injured since the fighting began.
The airport in the capital Khartoum has been at the centre of the fighting and was therefore inaccessible. Diplomats have been trying for days to secure a resilient ceasefire for the evacuation of foreign citizens.
After a brief ceasefire on Friday due to the Muslim Eid al-Fitr celebrations that mark the end of Ramadan, fighting continued overnight.
On Saturday morning, Khartoum was bombed again, a reporter at the scene told dpa. Shots rang out in the city, and eyewitnesses writing on Twitter reported explosions in the capital.
The ceasefire largely held during the night, the reporter said. There were only “sporadic clashes.”
The US embassy in Khartoum said on Saturday that the ongoing fighting and closure of the airport in the capital made it currently impossible to evacuate U.S. citizens.
The embassy continues to closely monitor the situation in Khartoum and surrounding areas, it said in a statement.
Apart from the fighting between the rival forces, there are currently reports of attacks, home invasions and looting.
In addition, the embassy has received incomplete information about convoys travelling from Khartoum towards Port Sudan, it said.
It added that it was not in a position to support convoys, meaning passengers travelled at their own risk, according to the statement.
According to the German Defence Ministry, the country’s armed forces, or Bundeswehr, are preparing for a new attempt to evacuate German citizens.
On Wednesday, an attempt at a diplomatic evacuation with air force planes had been aborted.
