As foreign governments airlifted hundreds of their diplomats and other citizens to safety, Sudanese on Monday desperately sought ways to escape the chaos, fearing that the country’s two rival generals will escalate their all-out battle for power once evacuations are completed.
In dramatic evacuation operations, convoys of foreign diplomats, civilian teachers, students, workers, and families from dozens of countries wound past combatants at tense front lines in the capital of Khartoum to reach extraction points. But for many Sudanese, the airlift was a terrifying sign that international powers, after failing repeatedly to broker ceasefires, only expect a worsening of the fighting that has already pushed the population into disaster.
Over 420 people, including at least 273 civilians, have been killed and over 3,700 wounded since the fighting began April 15. Food and fuel are leaping in price and harder to find, electricity and internet are cut off in much of the country, and hospitals are near collapse. Despite the pullout, US and European officials insisted they were still engaged in trying to secure an end to the fighting. But so far, the conflict has shown how little leverage they have with two generals—army chief Abdel-Fattah Burhan and RSF leader Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo—who appear determined to fight to the end.
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