Foreigners are fleeing in droves as fighting rages in Sudan.

On Monday, foreign nations pushed frantically to evacuate their citizens from the chaos-stricken Sudan, where fierce fighting between the forces of two opposing generals has raged for ten days.

The UN reported that while army and paramilitary troops clashed once more in Khartoum and around the nation, fearful Sudanese were forced to deal with severe shortages of water, food, medicine, and fuel as well as power and internet outages.

According to United Nations agencies, at least 427 people have died and more than 3,700 have been injured. The agencies also noted that Sudanese civilians were “fleeing areas affected by fighting, including to Chad, Egypt, and South Sudan”.

According to Dr. Attiya Abdallah, leader of the doctors’ organization, “morgues are full, corpses litter the streets,” and overburdened hospitals frequently have to halt operations for security reasons.

Emergency missions have been launched by the United States, numerous European, Middle Eastern, African, and Asian countries to transport their embassy staff and people residing in Sudan to safety by land, air, and sea.

On Sunday, US special forces used Chinook helicopters to swoop in and rescue diplomats and their dependents, while Britain sent more than 1,000 military men on a similar rescue mission.

Josep Borrell, the head of foreign policy for the European Union, claimed that throughout a “long and intense weekend” involving missions from France, Germany, and other member countries, more than 1,000 people of the union had been killed.

Many foreigners were airlifted out of lesser airstrips, many of them to the neighbouring country of Djibouti, because the international airport in Khartoum was shut down after battles that left burnt airplanes on the runways.

Long convoys of UN vehicles have traveled the difficult 850 km (530 miles) from the city, where shooting could be heard echoing through the streets, to Port Sudan on the Red Sea shore.

After arriving by bus in Port Sudan, a Lebanese evacuee told AFPTV, “The war fell upon us all without warning.” It was really upsetting for everyone, not just foreigners, but especially for Sudanese citizens.

It’s a pretty sad scenario in Khartoum. It is obliterated. After 17 years, I just had this T-shirt and these pajamas with me when I left.

Weapons and limited objectives
Fighting broke out on April 15 in the already impoverished African country with a history of military coups, raising concerns of an expanding humanitarian crisis and escalating carnage.

The five million-person capital metropolis has seen fierce street clashes between roving army and paramilitary forces, with the sky frequently clouded by fires in blasted buildings and looted stores.

Living in a war-torn area Architect Tagreed Abdin, a citizen of Khartoum, claimed that the city is “burdened with anxiety and exhaustion.”

A few doors away from us, in our neighborhood, there was a rocket strike. It seems like no place is secure.

Endre Stiansen, the ambassador of Norway, and his colleagues were evacuated, and he remarked that the evacuation followed “more than a week of unspeakable destruction” in the city.

He wrote on Twitter, “It fills me with immense sadness that I had to leave so many colleagues and friends from Sudan behind.” “I worry about their future because right now, words and values aren’t as important as weapons and specific interests.”

He stated that “most scenarios appear bad” when predicting Sudan’s future, which is already among the poorest countries in the world.

On April 15, combat broke out between Abdel Fattah al-Burhan’s army chief allies and his opponent and former deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who is in charge of the potent paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Following widespread public protests, the military removed Bashir from power in April 2019.

The two generals took control in a coup in 2021, but they later got into a contentious power battle that most recently focused on the RSF’s proposed absorption into the regular army.

– Bases based in hospitals
The impact of the violence on Sudan’s already severe humanitarian situation deepens as foreigners who can leave the nation do so.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), five relief workers have died, and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) has been forced to halt operations.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed 11 attacks on hospitals and clinics, some of which have been taken over by the opposing forces and are being utilized as military outposts, bringing the healthcare system dangerously near to collapse.

The UN said that a Doctors Without Borders property in Nyala, South Darfur, was invaded, its medical warehouse searched, and cars were taken.

OCHA’s most recent statement stated that “the remaining facilities in Khartoum and Darfur states are stretched beyond capacity and nearly non-functional due to staff exhaustion and a lack of supplies.”

Gunmen raided a WFP site in Nyala as well, capturing six food trucks and ten cars.

Up to 4,000 metric tonnes of food were stolen from warehouses in Nyala, South Darfur, according to OCHA.

As other supplies have been “rapidly consumed due to the heavy trauma load,” the WHO stated that it has prepared more emergency medical supplies “such as blood bags, trauma and emergency health kits to meet the urgent health needs.”