Thousands flee to Sudan’s main seaport, seeking ships to safety

PORT SUDAN – Thousands of people have descended on a port city in eastern Sudan in recent days,

fleeing violence in the capital

and trying to secure their escape aboard vessels heading over the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia.

The coastal city of Port Sudan – the country’s biggest seaport – has been transformed into a hub for those displaced by the war, with people using cloth and chairs to construct makeshift tents, packing a local amusement park for shelter and waiting for help in the heat.

Saudi Arabia has played a central role in the evacuation, extricating more than 5,000 foreigners from Sudan since fighting erupted just over two weeks ago between the forces of two rival Sudanese generals. Saudi Arabia is one of the countries nearest to Sudan – less than 240km across the Red Sea – and has the means to manage a large-scale evacuation.

The operation also fits efforts by the kingdom’s de facto ruler, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to position Saudi Arabia as a rising global power and neutral mediator. Saudi officials have relationships with both of Sudan’s warring generals, and Saudi Arabia is a member of the four-country group that tried and failed to steer Sudan to civilian-led rule.

Although international evacuations are now focused on Port Sudan, tens of thousands more people have fled by land into Chad, Egypt and South Sudan since the conflict erupted between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a paramilitary group.

At least 100,000 people have left Sudan since the fighting began, according to the United Nations, and the violence has killed more than 500 civilians, according to the World Health Organisation. The true number of casualties is likely to be much higher.

The conflict has thrust Africa’s third-largest nation into chaos, with many people displaced but unsure of how to escape the violence. The UN’s International Organisation for Migration said an estimated 334,000 people had been internally displaced by the fighting.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) agency estimates that more than 800,000 people could potentially flee to neighbouring countries as the conflict continues.

The two warring generals have agreed “in principle” to a seven-day truce pending talks aimed at ending the conflict, the government of neighbouring South Sudan said. The ceasefire had been brokered by South Sudan President Salva Kiir, who had spoken to army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who leads the RSF, Mr Kiir’s administration said in a statement.

On Port Sudan’s waterfront, video footage and images shared on social media showed families waiting under the scorching sun, in temperatures of more than 40 deg C. Some people rested on suitcases that contained the few possessions they had managed to take.

But unlike in Khartoum, there was no fighting, and restaurants and grocery stores were open, said Mr Yasir Zaidan, a lecturer in international affairs at the National University of Sudan, on Monday. Mr Zaidan, a United States permanent resident who arrived in Port Sudan with a US convoy on Sunday morning, said the army was in control of the city and the convoy passed army checkpoints on its way in.

Behind the hotel where he was waiting for news from the US consul, he said, was an amusement park overflowing with women, children and older people, suffering in the heat.

“It’s becoming more like a refugee camp,” he added.

Saudi Arabia said its rescue operation, using warships and private chartered vessels, had evacuated 5,197 people of 100 nationalities as at Sunday, of whom 184 were Saudi. But the demand has far outstripped supply.

Some Sudanese who are dual nationals have been evacuated. But many people waiting to leave Port Sudan hold only Sudanese passports, and there is concern they could be trapped indefinitely in the port as countries prioritise getting dual nationals out. For those without passports, it could be even harder to escape.

Some of those who did board ships for the 290km trip to Saudi Arabia’s second-biggest city, Jeddah, wept for the homes and families they had to leave behind.

The head of Saudi Arabia’s General Department of Passports said the country would grant free visas for all foreign nationals who had been evacuated from Sudan on a legal basis, but that they must have scheduled plans to leave the kingdom. Details of the process remained unclear on Monday.

The Saudi media was quick to hail the kingdom’s evacuation efforts. Newspapers printed photographs of Saudi soldiers welcoming evacuees in Jeddah, handing out flowers and cradling babies. Some evacuees held tiny Saudi flags.

Sudan had hosted one of the biggest refugee populations in Africa: about 1.1 million people, most of them from South Sudan, according to UNHCR.

Many of those people, including Yemenis and Syrians, are now again trying to escape to safety. According to UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi, about 3,000 South Sudanese are fleeing back to their fragile country every day. NYTIMES, REUTERS