Centre monitoring evacuation of Indians from Sudan, 600 reach home: Foreign Secy (Photo: IANS)
New Delhi: Even as the evacuation process of Indian citizens from violence-hit Sudan is underway through Operation Kaveri, the government on Thursday said that is monitoring the situation.
Addressing media persons, Foreign Secretary Vinay Kwatra said: “We are constantly monitoring the situation in Sudan since the conflict began on April 15. Our estimate is that there are approximately 3,500 Indians and 1,000 PIOs in Sudan.”
He further informed that around 600 Indian citizens have already reached India.
“We have received requests for the evacuation of citizens of other countries from Sudan. This is subject to the fulfilment of the procedures,” he added.
Kwatra further informed that apart from INS Sumedha and INS Teg, the third naval ship INS Tarkash has also reached Port Sudan on Thursday to evacuate Indians from Khartoum.
Meanwhile, Minister of State for External Affairs V. Muraleedharan informed that 297 Indians have been received at Jeddah, who was carried by INS Teg.
“With this second ship and total of six batches, around 1,100 Indians have been rescued from Sudan and have arrived in Jeddah,” Muraleedharan tweeted.
Riyadh: In an image that represented the highest meanings of humanity and human cohesion, a Saudi woman soldier appeared embracing a sleeping boy after his arrival at King Faisal Naval Base in Jeddah as part of the evacuations from Sudan.
An image circulated on social media showed a baby boy wearing a white and yellow shirt and shorts clinging to a Saudi Ministry of Defense soldier as she got off the ship.
Arabic channel Saudi Al-Ekhbariya published the video clip and captioned on it by saying, “A female employee of the Ministry of Defense embraces a child the moment he arrives in Jeddah as part of the Saudi evacuation from Sudan.”
Watch the video below
The soldier’s act of compassion has won praise from many social media users, who see the image as a representation of humanity and compassion at its best.
The Kingdom has been working for days to evacuate citizens and nationals from Sudan, against the background of the battles taking place between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
On Wednesday, the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that it had succeeded in evacuating about 2,148 people from Sudan. Of them, 114 are Saudi citizens, and 2,034 are from 62 nationalities; To translate its humanitarian and influential role globally.
By the time Britain’s first civilian evacuation flight had taken off from a rough airfield north of Khartoum on Tuesday afternoon, other European nations were highlighting their successes in evacuating hundreds of their citizens from Sudan.
Britain’s military may have been the first to use the Wadi Seidna base on Sunday afternoon, with permission of Sudan’s embattled government, to evacuate two dozen diplomatic staff, but the UK then passed on control of the airport to Germany.
At that point, with fighting between the Syrian government and RSF rebels still raging in and around Khartoum, Germany and France began their own evacuation process. Germany took over air traffic control and five flights had departed between late on Sunday and Tuesday lunchtime. A sixth and final German rescue flight, flying via Jordan, was due to leave on Tuesday evening.
The first five flights had evacuated 490 people from 30 countries, highlighted as a “huge achievement” by the country’s foreign secretary Annalena Baerbock.
“It was important to us that, unlike in other countries, an evacuation not only applies to our embassy staff, but to all local Germans and our partners,” Baerbock added, in an undiplomatic sideswipe at the policy pursued so far by the US and, until Tuesday morning, the UK.
Criticism in Britain had mounted on Monday following the rescue of 24 embassy staff in a risky operation that involved elite forces, probably from the SAS, picking them up in Khartoum and taking them to Wadi Seidna since no evacuation had been offered to the 2,000-plus other stranded Britons.
That changed shortly before 7am on Tuesday when James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, announced the UK was “coordinating an evacuation”. A Hercules transport, based at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, took off early in the morning with 130 Royal Marines and consular and immigration staff on board.
They arrived at the airport to set up and were ready around 11am, and with the ceasefire just about holding, a message went out from the Foreign Office telling people to travel “as soon as possible” to the airstrip, whose location was spelled out with GPS coordinates and the What Three Words mapping app.
People in Britain worrying about relatives in Sudan, though, remained concerned. Manal, a doctor in London, told the Guardian she had been lost contact with her 77-year-old mother, who had gone to attend a wedding in the country, because phone and internet connections were down.
“How is the government or Foreign Office or whatever going to contact people now?” the doctor said at lunchtime. Later on Tuesday, said she had finally reached her mother and brother, also in the country, but said they had not been personally by the Foreign Office told to head to the airbase.
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By the evening, the family had taken matters into their own hands, and had decided to travel to the airbase regardless, worrying that otherwise it would not be possible to get there in the short window for the planned evacuation flights home.
The Hercules plane then headed back to Cyprus, prompting inaccurate speculation that it may have been carrying the first evacuated people on it. Instead, it was returning to base largely empty, and as Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, was to explain in a late lunchtime update, there was a slight complication.
Pressed by Tobias Ellwood, the chair of the defence select committee, as to when the first flights with passengers would take off, Wallace told MPs that RAF flights out would start “if and when the Germans leave”, explaining that Germany’s military was “running the airfield at the moment”.
It was a surprising answer, highlighting how the UK had fallen behind. Two hours later it emerged the first British evacuation flight had finally taken off, making the four to five hour trip back to Cyprus and safety – given permission to leave by the German-run air traffic control.
Other countries meanwhile were winding down. France’s defence ministry said its rescue Operation Sagittaire (British officials were declining to say on Tuesday what the UK equivalent was called) had conducted nine return flights, rescuing 500 people from 40 countries, and had laid on 10 convoys to the airbase.
But despite being behind France and Germany, the UK was notably ahead of the US. As night fell in Sudan, there was still no sign of a US airlift for its 16,000 civilians in country, even though it was the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, who had helped broker the 72-hour ceasefire.
Two more British flights from north of Khartoum were expected overnight, expected to rescue several hundred and bring them back to the UK and elsewhere from Wednesday. And a contingent of Royal Marines remained in Port Sudan, where Wallace had directed the frigate HMS Lancaster to dock, in case the airstrip was suddenly shut down by a breach in the ceasefire.
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( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Khartoum: Amid ongoing conflict, Indian Air Force aircraft have landed in Port Sudan for evacuation operations, the Ministry of External Affairs official spokesperson Arindam Bagchi informed on Tuesday.
Indian Air Force’s C-130J aircraft have reached Sudan to evacuate stranded Indians as the process of evacuations continues in the violence-hit North African country.
“#OperationKaveri takes to the skies. IAF C-130J aircraft lands in Port Sudan to undertake evacuation operations,” Bagchi tweeted, as he informed about the same.
Earlier today (local time), Indians stranded in Sudan departed from the conflict-torn country in the first phase of ‘Operation Kaveri’. The third Saryu-class patrol vessel of the Indian Navy, INS Sumedha with 278 people onboard departed from Port Sudan for Jeddah.
Moreover, Union Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan on Tuesday inspected the transit facility at the International Indian School, Jeddah where Indians evacuated from Sudan will be received & put up briefly before arriving in India.
“Inspected transit facility @IndianPage,Jeddah where Indians evacuated from Sudan will be received & put up briefly before travel to India. It is fully equipped incl with mattresses, provisions, fresh meals,toilets, medical facilities, Wifi. Has 24*7 control room. #OperationKaveri,” the MoS wrote on Twitter.
As the fighting between the Sudanese Army and paramilitary groups intensified in the capital Khartoum, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar informed on Monday that its ‘Operation Kaveri’ to evacuate its citizens from battle-torn Sudan is underway and about 500 Indians had reached Port Sudan.
India has launched “Operation Kaveri” to bring back stranded Indians from the war-torn Sudan.
Meanwhile, Indian Navy’s INS Teg on Tuesday joined Operation Kaveri to help boost the ongoing evacuation of Indians stranded in Sudan. The frigate on Tuesday arrived at Port Sudan with additional officials and essential relief supplies for stranded Indians, a senior MEA official said.
“INS Teg joins #OperationKaveri. Arrives at Port Sudan with additional officials and essential relief supplies for stranded Indians,” Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) official spokesperson Arindam Bagchi tweeted on Tuesday.
“Will boost ongoing evacuation efforts by Embassy Camp Office at Port Sudan,” Bagchi further tweeted.
INS Teg is the fourth Talwar-class frigate constructed for the Indian Navy.
In a recent development, warring factions in Sudan have agreed to a 72-hour ceasefire on Monday after the US and Saudi Arabia mediated the truce while countries are engaged in evacuating their citizens from the country.
Previously agreed ceasefires have broken down, if the new three-day cessation of fighting holds, it could create an opportunity to get much-needed critical resources like food and medical supplies to those in need, reported CNN.
Sullivan’s comments came as foreign governments have airlifted hundreds of their diplomats and other citizens to safety as the country has spiraled into chaos amid fierce fighting between Sudan’s two rival generals vying for control of the country.
In dramatic evacuation operations, convoys of foreign diplomats, civilian teachers, students, workers and families from dozens of countries wound past combatants at tense front lines in the capital of Khartoum to reach extraction points. Others drove hundreds of miles to the country’s east coast. A stream of European, Mideast, African and Asian military aircraft flew in all day Sunday and Monday to ferry them out.
U.S. special operations forces carried out a precarious evacuation at the U.S. Embassy in Sudan on Sunday, sweeping in and out of the capital with helicopters on the ground for less than an hour. No shots were fired and no major casualties were reported.
Sullivan reiterated that the administration continues to look at “every conceivable option” to help Americans get out of Sudan but is not considering peacekeeping troops.
“It is not standard practice for the United States to send in the U.S. military” into warzones to extract American citizens, Sullivan said “We didn’t do it in Libya. We didn’t do it in Syria. We didn’t do it in Yemen, and no we didn’t do it in Ukraine. Afghanistan was a unique case involving the end of the 20-year war that the United States was centrally involved in.”
An estimated 16,000 private U.S. citizens are registered with the embassy as being in Sudan. The figure is rough because not all Americans register with embassy or say when they depart.
Sullivan said the U.S. “will go to great lengths to support and facilitate” the departure of Americans but also noted that the State Department has been cautioning Americans in Sudan to leave the country for years.
He added, “Americans are free people. We cannot dictate where they travel, tell them they must go or not go to a particular place.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
A Defense Department spokesperson confirmed that the U.S. was prepositioning troops, but stopped short of saying they were heading to Djibouti.
“The Department of Defense, through U.S. Africa Command, is monitoring the situation in Sudan and conducting prudent planning for various contingencies. As part of this, we are deploying additional capabilities nearby in the region for contingency purposes related to securing and potentially facilitating the departure of U.S. Embassy personnel from Sudan, if circumstances require it,” said DoD spokesperson Lt. Col. Garron Garn.
Some in the administration are hoping to avoid scenes reminiscent of the evacuation from Kabul, Afghanistan, in 2021. The crush of thousands pleading to leave the city as the Taliban took control became a defining image of America’s withdrawal.
Lawmakers, meanwhile, are worried about the safety of U.S. staffers in Khartoum.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said worried senators took a detour to a Capitol briefing Thursday on the document leaks to ask about the safety of U.S. personnel in Khartoum. Declining to provide specifics because of the classified setting, Kaine said there was a plan in place to take care of them.
“Arrangements have been made. They’re sheltering in place and currently all secure, all accounted for and in communication with them,” he said. “There’s a whole-of-government effort to figure out exactly how to make sure that they continue in safety. We’re very much on top of it.”
Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah), also on the committee, added “I, of course, have concerns about our personnel there.” He declined to discuss specific plans.
A military evacuation seems more likely by the hour.
The airport, located in central Khartoum, is closed but would be inoperable even if it reopened due to damage from bombardment and fighting. The roughly 70 U.S. staff at the embassy have no options to leave Sudan on their own without immense risk to their safety. For the most part, U.S. diplomats in Sudan are unaccompanied, meaning they do not have their family with them at what’s considered a challenging post, a State Department official said.
The American mission in the capital warned Thursday that “due to the uncertain security situation in Khartoum and closure of the airport, it is not currently safe to undertake a U.S. government-coordinated evacuation of private U.S. citizens.”
Also on Wednesday, Molly Phee, the top State Department official for African affairs, told congressional staffers that it was too late to order a departure of the mission because of the deteriorating security situation that has already led to around 300 deaths and about 3,000 more wounded, two congressional aides said.
Another U.S. official familiar with the planning said papers had been drawn up at the State Department for an evacuation order. The official added that State Department leadership held a call with embassy staff Thursday morning to discuss options, including a ground evacuation. But the assessment, per the official, was that travel by road was currently more dangerous than by air.
A potential option would be to move the personnel to Wadi Seidna Air Base for an air evacuation. Dozens of Egyptian soldiers captured by the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group were released this week and flew home from that base, which is 14 miles north of Khartoum.
The United States was also in touch with other countries with embassies in the Sudanese capital about evacuation plans, a different U.S. official said.
The State Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Biden administration has faced similar situations multiple times since the chaotic Kabul evacuation.
As the situation deteriorated in Ethiopia amid a major conflict, the State Department urged Americans to leave the country while preparing U.S. forces and diplomats for a potential full embassy closure that ultimately did not have to happen. (A partial drawdown of non-emergency embassy personnel was ordered.)
The administration shut down the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv in the days before Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Within months it had reopened the embassy, though not at full staffing.
The Biden administration in both cases said it would not stage another Kabul-style evacuation that involved people beyond U.S. government employees. To that end, it sent out warnings for weeks and months telling Americans to leave Ethiopia and Ukraine.
The political situation in Sudan has been volatile for years, and the State Department has long urged Americans not to travel there. The last time a similar fight broke out in the region between two top leaders, 400,000 people died — and that was in South Sudan.
Nahal Toosi and Joe Gould contributed to this report.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
New Delhi: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Tuesday expressed displeasure at Congress leader and former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah, asking him not to politicise the incident of evacuation of 31 tribals from the state, who are stuck in violence-hit Sudan.
Replying to a series of tweets earlier in the day by the Congress leader, who blamed the central government for not doing enough to ensure the safe return of the tribals stuck in the African nation, Jaishankar said that he was “appalled” at his response.
“Simply appalled at your tweet! There are lives at stake; don’t do politics. Since the fighting started on April 14th, the Embassy of India in Khartoum has been continuously in touch with most Indian nationals and PIOs in Sudan,” the External Affairs Minister tweeted while tagging Siddaramaiah’s earlier comments on Twitter.
“Plans regarding them have to take into account a very complicated security scenario. The Embassy is in constant touch with the Ministry in that regard. It is grossly irresponsible of you to politicise their situation. No electoral goal justifies endangering Indians abroad,” Jaishankar tweeted further, adding that “Their (tribals’) details and locations cannot be made public for security reasons. Their movement is constrained by fierce fighting that is ongoing.”
Incidentally, the social media slugfest between the two leaders took place at a time when political temperatures in Karnataka are on the rise, with assembly elections scheduled to take place there on May 10.
Congress leader Siddaramaiah had earlier appealed to the Centre, seeking safe return of a group of 31 tribals from the state, who are stranded in violence-hit Sudan.
“It is reported that 31 people from the state belonging to Hakki Pikki tribe are stranded in Sudan which is troubled by civil war,” Siddaramaiah had said in a series of tweets.
“I urge Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Ministry, Ministry of External Affairs and Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai to immediately intervene and ensure their safe return,” Siddaramaiah said.
“Hakki Pikki in Sudan are left stranded without food since the last few days and the government is yet to initiate action to bring them back. BJP government should open diplomatic discussions and reach out to international agencies to ensure the well-being of Hakki-Pikkis,” he had posted.
“It is also unfortunate to know that we have lost one Indian and 60 others in the ongoing civil war in Sudan. My deepest condolences to their families and pray for the peace in the region,” Siddaramaiah’s tweet read.
The tribals from the state had gone to Sudan for business.
