First German plane reaches Berlin

by Voice Cyprus News24 April 2023

Germany’s Bundeswehr military said on Monday that it had successfully flown 313 people out of Sudan, with the first three transport planes arriving in Jordan on Sunday night and in the early hours of Monday morning.
Three Airbus military transport A400Ms flew “both German citizens and also citizens of other countries,” a Bundeswehr spokesman told the AFP news agency. He said the evacuation went well and that the third plane with around 100 people on board had landed at around 02:25 a.m. (2325 GMT/UTC) in Jordan.

At 06:15 a.m in Germany (0415 GMT/UTC), the first A321 passenger plane with 101 people reached Berlin, the Foreign Ministry said on Twitter.
“Further evacuation flights are planned, so long as the security situation permits it,” the Foreign Ministry said.
Several countries have rushed to set up similar extractions as fierce fighting continues in the capital, Khartoum, for control of Sudan.
Two French planes carried around 200 people of multiple nationalities to Djibouti, and Italy’s Foreign Ministry said it had extracted about 300 people in total. Ireland also said it was dispatching an emergency team to assist with collecting its citizens and their dependants.
The US said on Sunday that they had airlifted around 100 people — US government personnel and their dependants and some foreign diplomats — out in Chinook helicopters. The UK said it had airlifted out diplomats and their families in a “complex and rapid” operation,
Meanwhile, Sudan’s neighbor to the north, Egypt, said that it had brought home 436 nationals by land.
A long convoy of UN vehicles and buses also left Khartoum by road heading east towards Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
Here are the key headlines around the Sudan crisis for Monday, April 24:

Sweden pulls embassy staff to Djibouti
The staff working for the Swedish embassy in Khartoum, their families, and a number of other Swedish nationals have been evacuated from Sudan to Djibouti, Swedish officials said on Monday morning. The country’s military planes and personnel would continue to help with the evacuation efforts for foreign nationals, they added.
Previously, Switzerland also said they decided to move their representatives out of the country for security reasons.
This was made possible thanks to a collaboration with our partners, in particular France,” the Swiss Foreign Ministry said on Twitter.
The EU’s top foreign affairs official, Josep Borrell, said on Monday that the EU’s ambassador was still in the country.
“The captain is the last one leaving the ship. He is in Sudan but no longer in Khartoum,” Borrell said.
Second week of fighting in Khartoum
Fighting broke out on April 15 between forces loyal to army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and those of his deputy-turned-rival Mohamed Hamdan Daglo — more commonly known as Hemeti — who commands the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
The World Health Organization estimates that at least 420 people have been killed and more than 3,700 injured so far in the fighting. The UN says that thousands have fled by road or on foot but that millions are also sheltering in their homes without adequate food, water or electricity amid gunfire, explosions and looting.
Hemeti’s RSF emerged from the Janjaweed fighters that former leader Omar al-Bashir unleashed in the Darfur region, where they were accused of war crimes, including genocide.
The military toppled Bashir in April 2019 following widespread civilian protests.
The two generals then seized power from a council trying to usher in more democratic rule in a 2021 coup, but later turned on each other, most recently in a dispute over the planned integration of the RSF into the regular army.
Several truces have been proposed or agreed in recent days, but not upheld.
( Source DW)

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