In the next 48 hours, all Pakistanis in Sudan will be taken out of the country: FO
On Monday, the Foreign Office said that almost all of the 1,000 Pakistanis in Sudan would be taken out of there in the next 24 to 48 hours.
In a short message, the FO said that 93 more Pakistanis who were stuck in Sudan had made it back to Pakistan in the fourth group of people who were sent away. It said that the most recent group had arrived at the airport in Islamabad on Monday on flight PK754.
According to the statement, a total of 636 Pakistanis who had been stuck abroad had returned home by the time five special PAF planes brought them to Karachi from Jeddah.
With the most recent group of people who had to leave their homes, a total of 729 Pakistanis have been sent back to their country so far.
Since the war started earlier this month, the FO has been trying to get Pakistanis stuck in the war zone back home.
First, the Pakistanis in Sudan are removed to Port Sudan. Then, they are moved to Jeddah, where the PAF takes them back home.
Pakistan thanks Saudi Arabia
In response to a statement from the Saudi foreign ministry, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs took to Twitter this morning to thank Saudi Arabia for helping Pakistanis who were in trouble during a hard time.
The tweet said, “We are grateful to the brotherly country of Saudi Arabia for helping Pakistanis in need during this hard time.”
A day earlier, the Saudi foreign office gave an update on Pakistani’s arrival in Jeddah.
“Today, a Royal Saudi Air Force transport plane with 45 Saudis and 36 Pakistanis on board arrived in Jeddah, and the ship H M S ‘Al-Diriyah’ arrived in Jeddah with 52 people from brotherly and friendly countries,” the Kingdom’s ministry wrote in a tweet.
What’s going on in the Sudan?
On April 15, fighting broke out in Sudan between supporters of army boss Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who used to be his deputy but is now his rival. Daglo is in charge of the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
So far, more than 500 people have died in the fights.
Daglo’s RSF grew out of the Janjaweed soldiers, who were sent to Darfur by former strongman Omar al-Bashir. There, they were accused of war crimes like genocide.
Bashir was overthrown by the military in April 2019 after a lot of people protested against him.
The two generals took power in a coup in 2021, but they later had a huge fight over who was in charge. The most recent fight was over plans to bring the RSF into the normal army.