Iraq evacuates nearly 150 from Sudan

Rudaw

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Iraq’s foreign ministry on Friday announced that it had returned over 100 Iraqis in a second round of evacuation from conflict-hit Sudan. 

A plane carrying 126 Iraqis as well as 15 Syrian and Sudanese nationals arrived in Baghdad from Port Sudan on Friday, the ministry’s spokesperson Ahmed al-Sahaf said.  

Iraq has evacuated a total of 429 of its nationals from Sudan.  

At the beginning of the month, 288 Iraqis were evacuated. Another six were brought to Saudi Arabia.

Intense fighting in Sudan between forces of army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the commander of the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), more commonly known as Hemeti, has killed at least 600 people and over 5,000 others, according to the United Nations. An Iraqi national is among the dead.  

Sudan’s neighbors have begun receiving people fleeing the country. The UN has called on these governments not to return Sudanese to their home country. 

"We're advising governments not to return people to Sudan because of the conflict that's going on there," Elizabeth Tan, UNHCR's director of international protection, said during a press briefing on May 5.