Saudi Arabia begins arrangements to evacuate citizens, other nationals from Sudan

Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry announced on Saturday it has begun the evacuations of Saudi citizens and nationals of “brotherly and friendly” countries from Sudan amid the armed conflict.

The Kingdom’s foreign ministry announced the evacuations in a statement released on Twitter.

It said the evacuations followed a directive from Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

More than 400 people have been killed after violence erupted last week between forces loyal to Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

On Friday, the United Nations, US, UK, Japan, Switzerland, South Korea, Sweden and Spain said they were making preparations or attempting to evacuate their personnel.

The army and the RSF said separately they agreed to a three-day truce to enable people to celebrate the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr which began on Friday.