It said the evacuations of diplomatic staff and nationals of the United States, Britain, France and China using their military aircraft were expected to start soon out of the capital, Khartoum. There was no immediate confirmation from these countries about the evacuations.
The Sudanese army statement added that Saudi Arabia’s diplomatic mission had already evacuated by plane from a port city on the Red Sea.
The spokesman for Jordan’s Foreign Ministry, Sinan al-Majali, said on television that the kingdom has begun evacuating its citizens with close cooperation and coordination with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Mijali said more details will be given later, and that the evacuation will include no fewer than 300 Jordanians. He described it as one of the largest evacuations from the country.
It was not immediately clear how many people would be evacuated or which countries planned to evacuate mainly diplomatic personnel or other foreign nationals as well.
The United States, South Korea, Japan and the Netherlands were among countries who have sent planes and troops to Sudan’s neighbors in recent days to prepare to extricate their citizens. Fighting between Sudan’s armed forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have turned airports into battlegrounds and prevented evacuations so far.
Burhan has been locked in a power struggle with the commander of the RSF, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, who is widely known as Hemedti, as street fighting shuts hospitals, halts aid operations and raises fears of a regional spillover. The violence has killed at least 400 people since last week and injured thousands, sending people streaming across the border to neighboring Chad.
The warring factions said they had agreed to a temporary cease-fire for the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr this weekend after rising calls from world leaders to stop the hostilities, although both reported some battles and accused the other of violations on Friday.
Biden administration officials said this week that the Defense Department was preparing troops near Sudan in case U.S. diplomatic and other personnel needed emergency evacuation.
Some 16,000 U.S. citizens are in Sudan, according to a U.S. official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive information. Around 70 people work at the embassy, excluding local staff. Sudan is an unaccompanied post for U.S. diplomats, meaning U.S. officials generally do not have family there.
The State Department has instructed U.S. citizens in Sudan to remain indoors and avoid travel to the embassy and said there will be no wider evacuation of all citizens.
Sarah Dadouch and John Hudson contributed to this report.
