Swiss will not be evacuated from Sudan for the time being

Switzerland is not evacuating its embassy staff in Sudan for the time being. The other hundred Swiss also have to hold out in the war-torn country. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the current situation does not allow an organized departure.

“The fighting continues,” Serge Bavaud, head of crisis management at the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs (FDFA), said in Bern on Friday. Despite international pressure, there are no signs of negotiations between the warring factions to end the fighting.

Embassy in disputed district

In a background conversation with journalists, Bavaud spoke of an unpredictable and dangerous situation. The situation for the Swiss embassy is complicated by the fact that its headquarters are located in a disputed part of the Sudanese capital Khartoum. Some employees were detained in the embassy. Some of them could not leave their homes and worked from there.

The ambassador’s residence was hit and the employees’ residential buildings sustained damage, Bavaud explains. There are currently seven Swiss diplomats stationed in Sudan. There are also five escorts and two Swiss nationals sent by the Ministry of Defense who are working in Khartoum for a UN mission. The Swiss embassy also employs about 50 local people, including 30 security guards.

“More difficult than in Afghanistan”

Bavaud reported on a difficult humanitarian situation in Khartoum. There is looting, the supply is problematic. In addition, it is not easy to obtain reliable information about the security situation. The military situation is unclear.

All in all, according to the diplomat, crisis management is more difficult than when the Afghan Taliban took power in Kabul in 2021, because there was already an international military presence in Kabul. In Sudan, on the other hand, the international community cannot just send troops, it is a sovereign state after all.

Fight at the airport

According to the FDFA, all this makes it impossible for Swiss people to evacuate the embassy and organize their departure.

Bavaud explained that there are currently no security guarantees from the parties to the conflict. Operations at the airport have been suspended and fighting is also raging there. In any case, an evacuation is only realistic with military transport aircraft – it is unlikely that airlines will make their machines available.

He hopes for a ceasefire and a time window for an evacuation, Bavaud said. We are in contact with other countries and the EU about this. The diplomat referred to an attempt by Germany to carry out an evacuation flight. The Bundeswehr had to give up the project on Wednesday.

Power struggle between generals

About a hundred Swiss nationals are registered as living in Sudan, according to the FDFA. The federal government does not believe that everyone wants to leave the country. Many of these people live in Sudan, some of them have Swiss-Sudanese dual nationality.

Only about a dozen people have so far expressed interest in an organized departure, says Bavaud. Not all Swiss are affected by the conflict, he stressed. The FDFA currently has no information on injured Swiss nationals.

In Sudan, fighting broke out on Saturday between the country’s two most powerful generals and their units. The two men have led the country in Northeast Africa of about 46 million people since a joint military coup in 2021.

De facto President Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who is also commander-in-chief of the army, is fighting alongside the army against his deputy Mohammed Hamdan Daglo, the leader of the powerful paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Recently, hopes of a ceasefire at the end of the Islamic fasting month of Ramadan were dashed. (oo/sda)