HARARE – Zimbabwe’s foreign ministry said Monday that it had begun the evacuation of its citizens from Sudan as rival military factions battle in the capital Khartoum.
There are around 100 Zimbabweans in Sudan, the ministry said, but not have requested to be evacuated.
Those that have requested to be evacuated were being taken to the Port of Sudan in United Nations convoys, foreign affairs spokesman Livit Mugejo said.
A power struggle between the regular army and a powerful paramilitary force has led to violence across Sudan for more than a week.
Foreign countries have scrambled to perform high risk evacuations of their nationals.
“An estimated 100 Zimbabweans resident in Sudan have reported safe but some have indicated their desire to be repatriated from Sudan. The ministry has managed to secure buses to evacuate our nationals to the Port of Sudan in the UN convoy,” Mugejo said in a statement.
“The closure of airports has affected the ability of the ministry to urgently assist with the repatriation of Zimbabweans in fulfilment of its mandate of protecting the interests and safety of Zimbabwean nationals abroad. A contingency fund has already been disbursed to the embassy to facilitate the evacuation of our nationals.”
Mugejo said since the conflict broke out, the ministry undertook a comprehensive exercise to reach out to all Zimbabwean nationals in Sudan to establish their current situation and to ascertain their immediate needs, including the possibility of evacuation from Sudan.
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa on Monday said his country would “assist other nationals” from “our region” stranded in Sudan.
“I can confirm that the operation to evacuate South Africans in Sudan and the staff at the South African embassy there is currently underway. They are being taken to a neighbouring country for safety,” foreign ministry spokesman Clayson Monyela told the press on Monday, without disclosing the country.
He did not give the numbers being evacuated or a timeline on when they would land in South Africa.
Ramaphosa told reporters in Johannesburg that some 77 South Africans were stuck in Sudan.
The eruption of fighting on April 15 between the army and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group has triggered a humanitarian crisis, killed 420 people and trapped millions of Sudanese without access to basic services.
Several ceasefires that had seemingly been agreed by both sides were ignored, including a three-day pause to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr, which started last Friday.
The Sudanese army said it worked with the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and France on evacuation operations at Wadi Sedna, an air base north of Khartoum.
The fighting broke out in Khartoum and other parts of the country on April 15, four years after long-ruling autocrat Omar al-Bashir was toppled.
The army and RSF jointly staged a coup in 2021 but fell out during negotiations to integrate the two groups and form a civilian government.
