Canada flew 118 people out of Sudan on Thursday as nations rush to get their citizens out of the war-torn African nation.
With a shaky 72-hour ceasefire set to end Thursday, senior federal officials said the Canadian Armed Forces successfully conducted two airlifts earlier in the day. Canadians and citizens from allied nations were onboard each plane, officials told reporters during a briefing.
The first flight carried 45 passengers, while the second carried 73. A nationality breakdown was expected to be provided later. Officials said 581 Canadians are still requesting help, and more than 200 citizens are now out of Sudan. That number did not include those who left on Canadian flights Thursday.
“The evacuations were without incident and we are planning for future extractions from the area in the days to come,” a senior official said.
“The situation on the ground remains dynamic, tenuous and is difficult to predict over the near and longer term.”
About 200 members of the Canadian Armed Forces have deployed to the region along with military planes and ships for evacuation operations.
Hundreds of people have been killed in nearly two weeks of conflict between the army and a rival paramilitary force, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which are locked in a power struggle threatening to destabilize the wider region. The United States and African nations are trying to secure an extension of the current ceasefire beyond Thursday.
“We are pursuing all options. The situation is extremely dangerous in Sudan and the civilian infrastructure is necessary for any evacuation of non-combatants,” National Defence Minister Anita Anand said Thursday morning.
Much of the fighting has been focused in the capital Khartoum, where RSF fighters have embedded themselves in residential areas, and the western province of Darfur, where conflict has simmered ever since civil war erupted there two decades ago.
Anand said most Canadians are in Khartoum.
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“The power, the communication, are intermittent. Food and water shortages are widespread, and so it requires our Canadian Armed Forces planners to consider all options for evacuation other than by aircraft,” she said.
“All options are on the table. Planning is occurring as we speak to ensure the maximum number of Canadians can be evacuated as soon as possible.”
Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said that more than 1,800 Canadians in Sudan are registered with the federal government.
Fighting broke out in Africa’s third largest country on April 15 between the Sudanese Armed Forces, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the RSF, led by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. The conflict has derailed a transition to civilian democracy after a 2021 military coup.
Many foreign nationals remain stuck in Sudan despite the exodus — one of the largest such evacuations since the withdrawal of U.S.-led forces from Afghanistan in 2021. Sudanese civilians, who have been struggling to find food, water and fuel, continued to flee Khartoum on Thursday.
At least 512 people have been killed and close to 4,200 wounded by the fighting.
The crisis has sent growing numbers of refugees across Sudan’s borders. The UN refugee agency has estimated 270,000 people could flee into South Sudan and Chad alone.
Thousands of people, mainly Sudanese, have been waiting at the border to cross into Egypt, Sudan’s neighbor to the north.
France said on Thursday it had evacuated more people from Sudan, including Britons, Americans, Canadians, Ethiopians, Dutch, Italians and Swedes. Britain said it might not be able to continue evacuating nationals when the ceasefire ends, and they should try to reach British flights out of Sudan immediately.
The conflict has also limited food distribution in the vast nation, where a third of the 46 million people were already reliant on humanitarian aid.
An estimated 50,000 acutely malnourished children have had treatment disrupted due to the conflict, and those hospitals still functioning face shortages of medical supplies, power and water, according to a UN update on Wednesday.
The Sudan Doctors’ Union said 60 out of 86 hospitals in conflict zones had stopped operating.
— with files from Global News’ Mercedes Stephenson, Alex Boutilier and Reuters.
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