About 100 people evacuated from Sudan by Spain, including a group of Portuguese, arrived in Madrid on Monday in a military plane, Spain’s foreign minister, José Manuel Albares, said in a publication on the social network Twitter.
The plane landed at around 11:20 local time (10:20 in Lisbon) at the Torrejón de Ardoz military base, in the Madrid region.
Spain announced on Sunday evening that it had managed to remove about a hundred people from Sudan, including Portuguese, by air as part of the movement for foreign citizens and diplomatic personnel to leave the African country amid violent clashes over more than a week.
The Spanish military plane departed Khartoum shortly before 11 p.m. local time (10 p.m. in Lisbon) on Sunday “with about a hundred passengers,” the Spanish government said in a statement, and made a stopover in Djibouti.
In addition to Spaniards, the passengers include Portuguese, Italians, Poles, Irish, Mexicans, Venezuelans, Colombians and Argentines, as well as Sudanese, detailed sources from the Spanish Ministry of Defense.
José Manuel Albares said in an interview with Spanish Public Radio (RTVE) this Monday morning that this was an “extremely delicate operation” as it took place in the midst of “a military conflict” but ultimately took place without incident.
According to the Spanish MNO, the most complicated thing was to regroup the people who wanted to leave Sudan within this operation and he said that the group that arrived in Madrid today includes all Spanish diplomatic personnel in the African country.
“In this context of war, which we hope will be short-lived, there are no possible diplomatic relations”he claimed.
Portugal’s MNO, João Gomes Cravinho, said today that 11 Portuguese were removed from Sudan in this operation organized by Spain.
According to Gomes Cravinho, of the 22 Portuguese the government has identified in Sudan, 21 are “out of the most dangerous situation” and on their way to Portugal and one wanted to stay in that country.
Gomes Cravinho clarified that there are several missions to remove people from Sudan, within which Portuguese citizens are leaving.
“It is not European Union coordination, there is very close coordination, mine and the Defense Minister with allies, especially France and Spain”he said.
“We are seeing if it makes sense to send an implement of the Portuguese Air Force or if on the contrary it is possible for them to get to closer places with other Allied aircraft and then the Air Force will pick them up”he added.
Violent clashes have erupted in Sudan since April 15, in a conflict between the forces of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s de facto leader since the 2021 coup, and a former deputy-turned-rival, General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who commands the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group.
The preliminary balance of the clashes indicates that more than 420 people have been killed and 3,700 injured, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Source: DN
