UK Relocates Its Sudanese Ambassador To Ethiopia As Fighting Continues Despite Ceasefire Agreement
The UK says Giles Lever, its ambassador to Sudan, has been relocated to neighboring Ethiopia after it temporarily closed its embassy in the conflict-riven East African country.
“From Addis Ababa, he will lead the UK’s diplomatic efforts in the region to bring the fighting to an end in Sudan,” the British Foreign Office said in a statement.
So far, six flights had evacuated 536 British nationals from Sudan, the UK authorities said. But there has been criticism of the slowness of the UK government’s evacuations compared with other Western countries.
Sudan’s army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group have agreed to extend the truce that was coming to an end for another 72 hours.
The ceasefire and its extension had been brokered by the United States and Saudi Arabia.
The existing truce, which was to expire at midnight Thursday, has not stopped the fighting between the two sides but created some lull for tens of thousands of Sudanese to flee to safer areas and for foreign nations to evacuate hundreds of their citizens.
At least 512 people have been killed in the fighting and almost 4,200 injured, although the real number of deaths could be much higher.
The World Health Organization said it expected there to be “many more” deaths due to outbreaks of disease and a lack of services.
Health officials say most hospitals in conflict areas are not functioning, and more than 60% of health facilities in Khartoum are inactive.
David Miliband, the head of the International Rescue Committee and former British foreign secretary, said the international community was in danger of neglecting the wider crisis in Sudan in the rush to evacuate foreign nationals.
“The fact that for the last 10 days, pretty much all the media coverage and the vast bulk of political attention has been on getting out thousands of people and not on the need to tend to millions of people really sticks in the gullet,” he told the BBC.
“Of course the lives of the thousands who need to evacuate are important, but what about the 45 million who are left?
“Sudan’s population has 15 million people in humanitarian need and I think part of our call today as the International Rescue Committee is to say let’s not fall into that trap of thinking that once thousands are evacuated the problem is solved.”
An army statement quoted by Reuters news agency said it had taken control of most of Sudan’s regions but “the situation is a bit complicated in some parts of the capital”.
Evacuations are continuing, but many foreigners are still stuck in Sudan. Some have struggled to get to the airstrip used for evacuations.
Local civilians are continuing to flee the capital, where there are problems with supplies of food, water, and fuel.
The fighting broke out on 15 April as the result of a bitter power struggle between the regular army and RSF.
Army commander Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and RSF chief Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti, disagree about the country’s proposed move to civilian rule, and in particular about the timeframe of the 100,000 strong RSF’s inclusion into the army.
Both factions fear losing power in Sudan because on both sides there are men who could end up at the International Criminal Court for war crimes committed in Darfur almost 20 years ago.
