More news is coming out that the British government’s evacuation plans seem to be in tatters as one British Sudanese citizen who made it out described the efforts in Sudan by the UK as being in “chaos.”
The Home Secretary Suella Braverman has defended the UK’s strategy and claimed that they have been “pivotal” in negotiation the so called ceasefire.
Africa correspondent Yousra Elbagir was informed by Hanadi Aboualela who was on a flight to the UK from Cyprus describe the evacuation efforts in Sudan.
He said, “I would like to say that considering we were the first citizen evacuation I expected the procedures to run smoother afterwards.
“Instead things seem to have become more unorganised, the team did not seem prepared with many of them running around not knowing what to do.
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“Our wait was longer than it should’ve been due to the ineffectiveness of the British team’s ability to communicate with the Sudanese army.
“It shouldn’t have been mine, or anyone else’s job to translate for them.
“It was chaos, one of the Sudanese soldiers I was translating for was just as confused and stated that all other country evacuations were smooth, this was the only team they struggled with.
“I will say that once we left Sudan things were much smoother.
“I’m still having to translate for one mother who’s here with her toddler. I don’t mind doing so but given that it’s taken them 10 days to start evacuating you’d think they would have thought to have a translator on the team.”
In a dig at the UK German’s Foreign Minister said they would “never leave their citizens to their own devices in Sudan unlike other countries.”
Braverman “refutes” the suggestion that the UK has left British citizens stranded and told Sky News that Britain is in a “very different situation to other countries” as we have a “larger cohort of British nationals” in Sudan.
She then said between 200 and 300 Brits have been evacuated since Tuesday evening, but there are still thousands stuck in the war torn country and the clock is fast ticking until the 72-hour ceasefire comes to an end.
Downing Street claims the flights are “full or close to full” saying there has been no “large scale” problems with “ineligible” people trying to board the planes.