A 72-hour ceasefire allows for the evacuation of 534 Indian citizens from Sudan; more will follow
The INS Sumedha transported the first group of 278 Indians to Jeddah in Arabia from Port Sudan, the nation’s principal port, which is more than 800 kilometers away from the capital Khartoum.
543 Indians were evacuated from Sudan
With the aid of military aircraft and a warship, India has evacuated over 543 of its citizens from Sudan, and more are scheduled to leave the nation amid a truce in hostilities between the regular army and a rebel paramilitary force.
Operation Kaveri Sudan
72-hour nationwide ceasefire
After a 72-hour nationwide ceasefire was reached between forces loyal to Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the Sudanese Army, and his rival, Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, commander of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the evacuation started on Tuesday.
Operation Kaveri
The INS Sumedha transported the first group of 278 Indians from Port Sudan, the nation’s principal port that is more than 800 kilometers from the capital Khartoum, to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.
Two additional batches of 121 and 135 passengers each were flown from Port Sudan to Jeddah as part of Operation Kaveri using Indian Air Force (IAF) C-130J medium-lift transport aircraft. On Sunday, India positioned two C-130J aircraft in Jeddah.
The External Affairs Minister’s Tweet
The Indians were welcomed by V. Muraleedharan, minister of state for external affairs, who had traveled to Jeddah on Tuesday to oversee repatriation efforts. In a tweet, he stated that “onward transit to the nation of India for everyone who landed in Jeddah will begin shortly.”
How are people evacuated to Saudi Arabia?
The majority of the Indian citizens who had gathered in Port Sudan up until Tuesday have now been evacuated to Saudi Arabia, but sources familiar with the situation said there are still difficulties in evacuating hundreds who are stuck in Khartoum, where the main airport has been damaged in recent fighting.
The use of military airbases close to the capital city is one of the options being looked into by Indian authorities for evacuating stranded Indian citizens from Khartoum and other locations.
Indian efforts in evacuation
To help with evacuation efforts, the Indian side established a control room and a transit facility in Jeddah. Indians brought out of Sudan will be kept there before being sent home; the transit facility is furnished with provisions, daily meals, medical services, and beds.
At the time of the outbreak of violence, there were about 3,000 Indian citizens living in Sudan, the majority of whom were in Khartoum.
Role of Saudi Arabia in Evacuation
The people claimed that Arabia, with which the Indian side quickly established close contact after fighting broke out in Sudan on April 14, is playing a crucial role in the evacuation efforts. Indians fleeing the war-torn nation can be transported to Saudi Arabia by air or sea and then put on flights to return home because of Saudi Arabia’s proximity to war-torn Sudan.
UNSC reports regarding clashes
According to reports of armed clashes in Khartoum and other locations, the ceasefire is only partially holding. However, there are no indications that the warring parties are prepared to engage in serious negotiations to put an end to the fighting, Volker Perthes, the UN representative for Sudan, told a UNSC meeting on Tuesday.
He claimed that neither side had made a clear indication that they were prepared to seriously negotiate, indicating that they both believed they could defeat the other militarily.
Over 4,000 people have been injured, and 459 people have died, according to UN agencies. There are widespread power and water shortages in Sudan, and food shortages have been reported in Khartoum and other cities.
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