Khartoum - The Indian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has announced that the first group of Indians stranded in Sudan due to the ongoing conflict have been evacuated to Saudi Arabia's Jeddah on board the INS Sumedha, an Indian Navy warship. The group of 278 people, including children, had been stranded in Sudan due to the intense fighting between the army and a paramilitary group.
India had positioned two transport aircraft in Jeddah and the INS Sumedha at Port Sudan as part of Operation Kaveri to evacuate its citizens. The Indians will be brought home after they reach Jeddah. The evacuation operation was initiated after the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, instructed officials to prepare a contingency plan to evacuate Indians from Sudan at a meeting on Friday last week.
There were an estimated 3,000 Indians across Sudan who were stranded due to the ongoing conflict. The security situation in Sudan remains volatile with reports of fierce fighting coming from several locations in the country's capital, Khartoum. Sporadic gunfire has been reported in some parts of Khartoum despite a US-brokered agreement between the warring generals to cease fire for 72 hours to pave the way for talks on a more lasting truce, according to the news agency AFP.
The ongoing conflict in Sudan has resulted in ten days of heavy fighting, including air strikes and artillery barrages, which have killed hundreds of people, many of them civilians, and left some neighbourhoods of greater Khartoum in ruins. However, there has been a reduction in the intensity of fighting in other areas since foreign governments scrambled road convoys, aircraft, and ships to get their nationals out since the weekend.
The fighting has pitted forces loyal to Sudan army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan against those of his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). The RSF emerged from the Janjaweed militia that then-president Omar al-Bashir unleashed in the Darfur region two decades ago, leading to war crimes charges against Bashir and others.
The Forces of Freedom and Change - the main civilian bloc which the two generals ousted from power in a 2021 coup - said the truce would allow for "dialogue on the modalities of a permanent ceasefire". Despite the truce, the situation in Sudan remains unstable, and further efforts will be required to bring about a lasting peace in the region.