The first Bundeswehr military plane with rescued people from Sudan landed in Berlin on Monday morning. The Federal Foreign Office announced on Twitter that 101 Germans, their families and members of other partner countries were on board. The plane landed at 6:15 a.m. Further evacuation flights are planned as long as the security situation allows, the Foreign Office said.
Like other countries in the country on the Horn of Africa, Germany began a military evacuation on Sunday. In total there were three Airbus A400M flown to Sudan by the Bundeswehr to take in people. More than 300 Germans registered on a crisis list were to be flown out via the Jordanian military airfield Al-Asrak. Citizens of partner countries should also be helped. The operation, in which more than 1,000 men and women from the Bundeswehr are involved, was prepared over several days.
According to Bundeswehr information, a first German military transporter with 101 people took off for the return flight on Sunday evening, later followed by a second machine with 113 rescued people, then a third with a similar number of occupants. It is still unclear whether all Germans registered on the crisis list have already been taken out of the country.
Heavy fighting broke out in Sudan more than a week ago between the country’s two most powerful generals and their units. The two men have led the country in northeast Africa with around 46 million inhabitants since two joint military coups in 2019 and 2021.
De facto President Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who is also the Army Commander-in-Chief, is fighting with the military against his deputy Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, the leader of the powerful paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Actually, the RSF should have subordinated itself to the army and power in the country should have been transferred back to a civilian government. However, since both camps were ultimately unable to reach an agreement, the conflict turned violent. More than 400 people are said to have died. In Khartoum, tens of thousands of residents are said to be stuck in houses, some without water and food.