About 100 people evacuated by Spain from Sudan, including a Portuguese woman, arrived in Madrid on Monday on a military plane, Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albarez said in a Twitter post.
The plane landed at the Torrejon de Ardoz military base in the Madrid area around 11:20 local time (10:20 Lisbon).
On Sunday evening, Spain announced that it had managed to evacuate about a hundred people from Sudan, including a Portuguese woman, by air as part of a move to leave the African country for foreign nationals and diplomatic personnel due to violent clashes more than a year ago. a week.
The Spanish military plane took off from Khartoum shortly before 11 pm local time (10 pm Lisbon) on Sunday “with about a hundred passengers,” the Spanish government said in a statement, and made a stop in Djibouti.
In addition to the Spaniards, among the passengers there are Portuguese, Italians, Poles, Irish, Mexicans, Venezuelans, Colombians and Argentines, as well as Sudanese, say sources in the Spanish Ministry of Defense.
José Manuel Albarez said on Monday morning in an interview with Spanish Public Radio (RTVE) that it was an “extremely delicate operation” as it took place in the midst of a “military conflict” but ended up without incident.
The hardest part was regrouping the people who wanted to leave Sudan as part of this operation, Spain’s MNE said, and said the group that arrived in Madrid this Monday includes all of Spain’s diplomatic staff in the African country.
“In this context of a war that we hope will be brief, diplomatic relations are not possible,” he said.
Portuguese MNE João Gomes Cravinho said that of the 22 Portuguese who were in Sudan, 21 expressed their intention to leave and only one decided to stay in the African country.
Gomes Cravinho specified that there are several missions to take people out of Sudan, in which Portuguese citizens leave.
“This is not EU coordination, there is very close coordination, mine and the Minister of Defense with allies, in particular with France and Spain,” he said.
“We are looking at whether it makes sense to send an asset of the Portuguese Air Force or, on the contrary, whether it is possible for them to fly with other allied aircraft to closer places, and then the Air Force will pick them up,” he added.
Since April 15, Sudan has seen violent clashes in a conflict that has pitted the forces of General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s de facto leader since the 2021 coup d’état, and former MP-turned-rival General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, commander of the Operational Forces paramilitary group. support” (RSF).
The preliminary balance of clashes shows more than 420 dead and 3,700 injured, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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