Several European citizens have been missing since the outbreak of fighting in Sudan last Saturday, which has claimed at least 270 lives, the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, announced on Tuesday.
“We know that there are several missing people, (…) people we don’t know where they are. They disappeared,” Borrell said, speaking to the Spanish news agency EFE from the headquarters of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, without giving details about their nationality or numbers. specific.
The high representative also confirmed that both the ambassador of the European Union in Sudan, Aidan O’Hara, and the staff of the delegation “are fine”, despite an attack on the diplomat’s residence on Monday.
“Unfortunately, it is not comparable to the hundreds and hundreds of Sudanese who died, adding civilian and military casualties in a conflict between two generals vying for power,” said the head of European diplomacy.
Asked if Brussels is considering a possible withdrawal of the Europeans currently in Sudan, Borrell said the EU is “working on the matter”, without elaborating.
The head of European diplomacy said he was in contact with Egypt, Kenya, the United Arab Emirates and the African Union to achieve a ceasefire and spoke in favor of maintaining EU humanitarian aid to Sudan.
Army forces led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s de facto leader since the 2021 coup, clash with the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group led by General Mohamed Hamdane Daglo, known as “Hemedti” .
The two orchestrated the 2021 coup together, but differences between the two escalated a few weeks ago amid negotiations to reach a final agreement with civilian groups, and on Saturday the army attacked RSF positions in an apparent retaliation. to a previous attack.
Despite the calls of the G7 foreign ministers, meeting in Japan, the UN and the US to put an “immediate end to the violence”, the clashes continued on Tuesday in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum.
The clashes have also caused more than 2,000 injuries, according to the World Health Organization.
Source: TSF
