Three flights of the Royal Saudi Air Force carry the evacuees to safety
Published : 07 May 2023, 09:14 PM
As many as 135 Bangladeshi nationals have reached Jeddah from Port Sudan by three flights of the Royal Saudi Air Force as fighting between the army and a paramilitary force has continued in the Northeast African country.
Tareque Ahmed, chargé d'affaires at the Bangladesh Embassy in Khartoum, said 400 Bangladeshis were supposed to leave Port Sudan by a ship on Saturday night, but the vessel did not depart.
“We then appealed to the Saudi authorities about the women, children and sick people among the evacuees. They later gave tickets for 135 people,” Tareque said on Sunday.
The first flight carrying 45 Bangladeshis evacuees left on Sunday morning, according to him. Twenty-four Bangladeshis were among the evacuees on the second flight and 65 on the third.
“The good thing is we’ve been able to send the vulnerable people first,” Tareque said.
The Bangladesh Embassy in Saudi Arabia said Ambassador Mohammad Javed Patwary and Consul General in Jeddah Muhammad Nazmul Hoque welcomed the Bangladeshis.
They were kept at the Jeddah-Bangladesh International School and some of them were scheduled to leave Jeddah for Dhaka by a Biman Bangladesh Airlines flight on Sunday night.
More than 680 Bangladeshis out of about 1,500 in Sudan left Khartoum for Port Sudan for evacuation under arrangements by the Bangladesh Embassy on May 2. They were transported by 13 buses.
Fighting could be heard in south Khartoum on Sunday as envoys from Sudan's warring parties were in Saudi Arabia for talks that international mediators hope will bring an end to a three-week old conflict that has killed hundreds and triggered an exodus.
The US-Saudi initiative is the first serious attempt to end fighting between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that has turned parts of the Sudanese capital Khartoum into war zones and derailed an internationally backed plan to usher in civilian rule following years of unrest and uprisings.
Battles since mid-April have killed hundreds of people and wounded thousands of others, disrupted aid supplies and sent 100,000 refugees fleeing abroad.