Due to the closure of airspace and ferocious fighting between competing forces, Canada has informed its people living in Sudan that evacuations are “not possible at this time”.
The Canadian government advised citizens to “continue to shelter in place” in a tweet sent out on Saturday, assuring them that it was “coordinating with other countries to respond to the crisis.”
The tweet was sent before US President Joe Biden said that members of the US government and their families had been evacuated during a special military operation.
Earlier on Saturday, Saudi Arabia said it had evacuated Canadian nationals from Sudan to Saudi Arabia. However, the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not provide the number of Canadians it had helped to evacuate.
There are 1,596 Canadians signed up to the Registration of Canadians Abroad Service in Sudan but this number provides only an estimate of Canadians in Sudan as registration is voluntary.
Since registration is voluntary, the number of registrants for any given area is typically not fully representative of the number of Canadians actually residing or visiting that area. Canadian citizens can register through the Registration of Canadians Abroad service on the Travel.gc.ca site.
Fierce fighting erupted in the northeastern country on April 15 between the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
The ensuing violence has seen hundreds killed and thousands wounded, igniting fears of a humanitarian catastrophe.
Many Sudanese people have been desperately trying to flee escalating violence in Khartoum, where hospitals are being flooded with victims.
But escaping Sudan now is no easy task. Bus tickets out of the conflict zone are estimated to be at least five times more expensive than before.
Survivors have told CNN that they wanted to leave the country “at any cost.” “Death surrounded us from all directions so I said it would be better for us to die attempting to cling to life while trying to survive instead of dying by a stray bullet at home or maybe dying of hunger or thirst,” said a father of four.
In addition to Canadians, Saudi authorities said they had also evacuated people from 11 other countries which included Qatar, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates and Burkina Faso, as well as its own citizens.