Countries evacuating their citizens from Sudan

Countries are rushing to evacuate their diplomats and citizens from Khartoum, Sudan’s capital as fighting between the two rival factions in the Northeastern African country’s capital continues.

Canada, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and the United States are among the nations using aircraft and convoys to bring foreign nationals out of Sudan.

More than 420 people have been killed so far and thousands have been injured.

Sudanese nationals are fending for themselves amid power blackouts and loss of internet service.

Some Sudanese have made the decision to take to the dangerous roads in cars and buses to escape.

The U.S. Agency for International Development chief announced Sunday that it has deployed a team of disaster response experts for Sudan. USAID chief Samantha Power said the team will initially operate out of Kenya.

Power said, “The United States is mobilizing to ramp up assistance to the people of Sudan ensnared between the warring factions.” She said the Disaster Assistance Response Team or DART will work with “the international community and our international partners to identify priority needs and to safely deliver life-saving humanitarian assistance to those who need it most.”

“At a time when many Sudanese families should be celebrating the end of the holy month of Ramadan,” Power said, “they are instead living in terror.”

Fighting between the warring factions has also erupted in Darfur.

“All of this suffering compounds an already dire situation,” Power said, “one-third of Sudan’s population, nearly 16 million people already needed humanitarian assistance to meet basic human needs before this outbreak of violence.” [VOA/NS]