The number of French nationals and other nationalities evacuated from Sudan is about 400. A second French plane landed in Djibouti on Sunday evening, the French Foreign Ministry said. This second plane had "a hundred people on board", "French nationals but also of third nationalities, including European", said a spokesman for the Quai d'Orsay. According to a Djiboutian airport source, a first plane carrying 106 passengers had already landed in Djibouti late afternoon.

"These rotations made it possible to evacuate 388 people, including French nationals who so wished as well as a significant number of citizens from other countries, particularly European (Germany, Austria, Denmark, Finland, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Ireland, Netherlands, Romania, United Kingdom, Sweden, Switzerland) but also African (South Africa, Burundi, Ethiopia, Lesotho, Morocco, Namibia, Niger, Uganda, Rwanda, Sudan), America (United States, Canada) and Asia (India, Japan, Philippines)," the ministry said in a statement.

A "volatile situation"

Asked about shots fired at a convoy that according to some media had wounded a Frenchman, sources at the French Ministries of Foreign Affairs and the Armed Forces said they did not "wish to comment on this kind of rumor" while "the operation is not over". "We would not have done it if we had not had security guarantees from the belligerents, which were reiterated and reiterated," they said. The operation, named "Sagittarius", is of "extreme complexity" and "can cause difficulties to the end" in a country at war where, in addition, the "networks are no longer functional", while a precise geolocation of nationals is necessary, they added.

Some 150 soldiers are mobilized, "elements of protection, others of reconnaissance, logistical support and medical personnel", in a "volatile situation", where the two sides "continue to make war, even during the truces", according to the general staff of the French armies. Reconnaissance operations are being carried out to "secure" as much as possible the routes taken by civilians, who have been grouped upstream, to get to an airport in the Khartoum region, the source said. Among the countries that have requested the France's help to evacuate their citizens, the diplomatic source listed Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Niger, Morocco, Egypt, and Ethiopia, without specifying whether these nationals were on either plane.

Rescued "psychologically weakened"

After more than a week of fighting between the army of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhane, Sudan's de facto ruler, and his deputy turned rival, General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, who commands the feared paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), those arriving at the airport were "tired, tense, but very relieved to have arrived safely", according to French sources. They are "psychologically weakened by what they have experienced" but in a relatively good physical condition, while food, water and energy are lacking in the capital Khartoum, from the same sources.

In addition to the air option, the French authorities had considered an evacuation by land, finally ruled out given the difficulties of refueling in particular that it would have caused. Four planes had been prepositioned for a few days in Djibouti and other assets are on standby in Chad for the operation, according to the general staff. Maritime assets have also been deployed off the coast of Sudan "for all intents and purposes", it was said.

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  • Evacuation