kahrtoum: In anticipation of leaving the war-torn nation of east Africa, thousands of foreigners and citizens of Sudan gathered at the port on Wednesday as the UN's humanitarian chief arrived.
The UN's emergency relief coordinator and under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, Martin Griffiths, stated via Twitter that the purpose of his visit to Port Sudan was to reaffirm the organization's commitment to the Sudanese people.
He arrived on the final day of a shaky cease-fire that had done little to stop the fighting and was set to end at midnight.
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It also occurs at a time when concern over the humanitarian situation for those trapped in the fighting and those who have been displaced by it, which is the result of a power struggle between the two top generals of the nation, is growing. However, concerns about how the UN agencies can operate with limited staff and supplies
A land convoy carrying thousands of UN employees left the city of Khartoum for Port Sudan more than a week after the brutal violence erupted there on April 15th. After two of its employees were killed in the fighting in the south of Sudan, some UN offices, including the World Food Programme, halted their operations. Since then, the WFP has declared that operations will resume.
After months of rising hostilities between the military, led by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, and a rival paramilitary organisation known as the Rapid Support Forces, led by Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the battle for control of Sudan broke out.
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Over 4900 people have been injured by the conflict, including 550 civilian deaths. According to U.N. agencies, the fighting has forced at least 334,000 people from their homes in Sudan and sent tens of thousands more to nearby Egypt, Chad, South Sudan, the Central African Republic, and Ethiopia.
Since the start of the crisis, 2,300 foreign nationals and more than 42,000 Sudanese refugees who were fleeing the civil war in their nation have entered Egypt.
The dearth of basic services in these locations, as well as Port Sudan, which is situated on the Red Sea about 400 kilometres (520 miles) from the capital, is causing aid workers growing concern.
A large number of western nations have finished evacuating their citizens from the nation; France, the UK, and now the US are now using Port Sudan as a base for those looking to depart. However, people in other countries are still attempting to escape. The last foreigners to leave are reportedly hundreds of Syrians, who fled the civil war in their own country ten years ago and came to Sudan.
A second flight to Damascus, carrying about 200 Syrians, mostly pregnant women and sick people, is scheduled to depart from Port Sudan later on Wednesday, according to Tariq Abdel-Hameed, a Syrian living in Port Sudan.
He claimed that the first flight, which had 200 passengers on board, including 21 children, arrived in the Syrian capital early on Wednesday. More flights, he claimed, are planned for the upcoming days.
The fighting continued in and around Khartoum on Wednesday. Residents hiding in their homes could still hear explosions, and clouds of smoke could be seen over the scenes of ongoing combat. The fighting appeared to be concentrated around important government structures like the presidential palace.
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Many of the city's neighbourhoods showed increasing signs of lawlessness, and there were rumours that more diplomatic facilities were being targeted. Saudi Arabia reported on Wednesday that armed men stormed the building housing the cultural attaché's office in Sudan.
According to a statement on the official Saudi Press Agency, a group of armed individuals "destroyed equipment and cameras, seized some of the attaché's property, and disrupted the attaché's systems and servers."
