CNN —
At least 50 people were injured and an unknown number killed in shelling that rocked the capital Khartoum on Monday, the Preliminary Committee of Sudan Doctors’ Union said in a statement.
Meanwhile, foreign governments led rescue efforts to evacuate civilians from the intense conflict.
US special forces helped bring almost 100 people – mostly US embassy staff, as well as a small number of diplomatic professionals from other countries – to safety over the weekend, US officials said.
Many other nations are scrambling to do the same, with more than 1,000 European Union nationals evacuated so far.
Evacuations have been complicated by ongoing clashes.
The two sides at the center of more than a week of fighting – Sudan’s army and a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – blamed each other after a French evacuation convoy came under fire trying to leave Sudan, with one French national injured.
One staff member of the Egyptian embassy in Sudan was also shot and injured during an evacuation operation, Cairo’s foreign ministry said.
Paris said later that it had closed the French embassy in Sudan until further notice.
Meanwhile, many Sudanese civilians are either trapped in their homes with dwindling food or desperately looking to find exit routes out of the country via its land borders, with the capital’s main international airport still shuttered.
The flurry of operations came on the ninth day of clashes in Khartoum.
Sudan’s military leader, Gen. Abdul Fattah al-Burhan, and commander of the RSF, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, seized control of the country in a military coup in 2021 and were due to hand over power to a civilian government but turned on each other instead.
More than 420 people have been killed and 3,700 injured in the fighting, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
The humanitarian situation on the ground is deteriorating without access to medical services and with many are left stranded without food or water.
A series of ceasefires, including the latest called for the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr, have been broken.
Residents in parts of Khartoum told CNN early on Sunday morning that there were no signs that the cessation of hostilities was being adhered to, as they awoke to aerial attacks, heavy artillery, explosions, and gunfire.
They relayed that clashes were raging around the military headquarters and presidential palace in the city center.
‘Complex and rapid’ operations
Despite the steep risks, foreign governments continue to announce rescue missions to pull their citizens out.
US citizens in Sudan were advised they could join evacuation convoys organized by the UAE and Turkey on Sunday, with the US government saying it has no plans for its own citizen evacuation.
There are an estimated 16,000 American citizens in Sudan – most of whom are dual nationals.
Some countries have already successfully carried out evacuations, including the United Kingdom, Spain, Jordan, Italy, France, Denmark, and Germany. Several of their convoys also carried citizens from other countries, including Swedes, Portuguese, Mexicans, Palestinians, Iraqis, and Syrians.
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell said Monday that more than 1,000 EU nationals have been evacuated so far, calling it a “successful operation.”
“It has been a long weekend, a long and intense weekend trying to take our people out of Sudan,” Borrell said, thanking France in particular for bringing out other non-French foreign nationals.
More evacuations are still being planned or are underway for the Netherlands, Belgium, Norway, Germany, Sweden, Egypt, Turkey, Libya, India, Russia, Australia, Japan, China, and the Philippines.
About 500 Indian nationals reached the city of Port Sudan with more on the way, India’s Minister of External Affairs Dr. S. Jaishankar said Monday.
The German Armed Forces evacuated 311 people on Monday morning, including Germans as well as evacuees from over 20 other nations.
A Spanish military plane with 34 Spaniards and 38 citizens from 11 other nations landed in Madrid on Monday morning, according to Spain’s foreign ministry.
Uganda is evacuating 300 of its citizens via buses to the Ethiopian border, where they will fly out from the Ethiopian city of Gondar, Dickson Ogwang, the head of the chancery of the Ugandan embassy in Khartoum, told CNN.
Meanwhile, up to 50 Irish citizens have been extracted from Sudan in the last 24 hours with the assistance of the French and Spanish governments, the country’s foreign minister said Monday.
In Rome, a military flight with 98 Italians on board, as well as 30 other nationals, is expected to land in the early evening local time at Ciampino Airport.
Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that some Japanese nations evacuated from Sudan had arrived in Djibouti, with the help of the French government.
At the same time, Britons in Sudan said they feel “abandoned” by the UK government’s move to evacuate diplomats only.
One British citizen, named Fatima, told the BBC that she feels “abandoned” by the government, calling the situation on the ground “traumatizing.”
Meanwhile, the UK’s Africa Minister Andrew Mitchell has stressed that the government “will do everything” it can to get thousands of British citizens out of Sudan.
‘Stay and risk starvation, or be killed by a stray bullet’
But as foreign nationals rush out on evacuation planes, millions of Sudanese citizens have been left to fend for themselves – stranded for days in their homes and uncertain of how to make their way out to safety.
As regions of Sudan are battered by the violence, the International Committee of the Red Cross said it will have to “adapt” its emergency response.
“We have managed to relocate some our staff by road to Kassala and Gedaref and will try to evacuate some non-essential personnel by road to Ethiopia and Chad,” Africa’s regional spokesperson Alyona Synenko told CNN in a statement.
“We are also urgently looking for ways to deploy additional personnel and deliver supplies to provide emergency response in Khartoum and other regions of Sudan affected by fighting.”
Isma’il Kushkush, a Sudanese-American journalist based in Khartoum, was trapped with 29 residents, including children and foreign nationals, in a building in downtown Khartoum near the presidential palace for days.
“No power or water for five days. Using little water remaining in the water tank. Running out of food rations. Unable to leave the building which is located two blocks from the presidential palace. The epicenter of the fighting since the conflict began,” he said in a string of text messages to CNN.
The group was later safely evacuated.
