Italian citizens are boarded on an Italian Air Force C130 aircraft during their evacuation from Khartoum, Sudan, in this undated photo obtained by Reuters on April 24, 2023. Ministero della Difesa/Handout via REUTERS
Luxembourg, Luxembourg — More than 1,000 European Union citizens were evacuated from conflict-hit Sudan over the weekend, the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Monday.
“It has been a complex operation and it has been a successful operation,” Borrell told journalists.
Borrell said 21 diplomats from the EU’s mission in Khartoum were taken out and the EU ambassador had moved outside the capital to elsewhere in Sudan.
“I want to thank France especially for taking our people out,” he said.
“And I want to thank the combined efforts of many countries that took their nationals but also all nationals that they could pick.”
An EU official on Friday told AFP that there were an estimated 1,500 citizens from the bloc in Khartoum.
Across Khartoum, army and paramilitary troops have fought ferocious street battles since April 15, leaving behind charred tanks, gutted buildings and looted shops.
More than 420 people have been killed and thousands wounded, according to UN figures, amid fears of wider turmoil and a humanitarian disaster in one of the world’s poorest nations.
Borrell said on Sunday that he had spoken to rival commanders Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan