Tanzania evacuates 200 citizens from conflict-torn Sudan
Dr Stergomena Tax, Minister of Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation. PHOTO | COURTESY
What you need to know:
- The minister said the group, which includes diplomats, students, and citizens, was safely evacuated by road transport to the nearest border of Ethiopia before being set to be transported back home by national carrier Air Tanzania
Dar es Salaam. About 200 Tanzanian nationals have been evacuated from war-zoned Sudan, minister for Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation, Dr Stergomena Tax, has announced.
The minister said the group, which includes diplomats, students, and citizens, was safely evacuated by road transport to the nearest border of Ethiopia before being set to be transported back home by national carrier Air Tanzania.
Speaking today, the minister said the government used the three-day cease-fire window from April 21st to 23rd, 2023, to evacuate all its citizens.
"All Tanzanians who were in Khartoum are safe; at the moment they have reached the Ethiopian border. We failed to use direct flights from Sudan because the airports are now one of the areas at risk of receiving heavy gunfire from the battling factions," she said.
Intense fighting is going on in Khartoum between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and a paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), over control of Khartoum.
The fighting that has erupted in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, and elsewhere in the country is a direct result of a vicious power struggle within the country's military leadership.
The clashes are between the regular army and a paramilitary force called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Since the 2021 coup, Sudan has been run by a council of generals, led by the two military men at the centre of this dispute: Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of the armed forces and in effect the country's president, and his deputy and leader of the RSF, Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti.
They have disagreed on the direction the country is going and the proposed move towards civilian rule. The main sticking points are plans to include the 100,000-strong RSF in the army and who would then lead the new force.
The shooting began on April 15, following days of tension as members of the RSF were redeployed around the country in a move that the army saw as a threat.
There had been some hope that talks could resolve the situation, but they never happened.
It is disputed who fired the first shot, but the fighting swiftly escalated in different parts of the country, with more than 400 civilians dying, according to the World Health Organisation.
