ICRC Denies Evacuation of Personnel from Sudan amidst Crisis

Moscow, April 26 – The ICRC does not intend to evacuate its staff from Sudan amid the ongoing clashes, despite the inability to maintain regular contact with them, Iman Trabelsi, the ICRC’s official representative in the Middle East, told the News Agency.

“We did not evacuate our battalions from Sudan, including the international battalions made up of citizens of foreign countries. They are still there because we believe that our role is to rescue as soon as possible,” she said.

An ICRC spokeswoman said: “Some of the ICRC’s brigades have been evacuated from the cities, where the clashes have become more violent, to neighboring areas. However, we have not evacuated our battalions from Sudan and do not intend to do so.”

According to Trabelsi, a large part of the organization’s staff working in the country are Sudanese, who under the current circumstances “suffer just like the rest of the local population.” “Today we cannot maintain any satisfactory contact with our team in Sudan,” she said.

According to a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, many local residents trapped in the areas of clashes were left without drinking water, food, electricity or any medical assistance. “Access to hospitals is very limited, the scale of clashes is increasing, and local residents cannot move freely and reach safe cities,” she said.

Various medical organizations, in turn, cannot provide full assistance to patients in conditions where “there are practically no stocks of basic medical supplies … or the ability to replenish them.” Thus, the ICRC has not been able to deliver additional shipments of medical supplies to Khartoum, despite the fact that the medical care situation in the city is very difficult. “Many hospitals have stopped working because of the lack of medicines and other necessary funds, as well as because of the shortage of staff – doctors and other staff cannot get to the workplace. Some institutions have temporarily stopped working due to the lack of water and electricity,” she said.

Trabelsi stressed that under these circumstances, it is necessary first and foremost to achieve a humanitarian truce. “The priority task is to obtain the parties’ agreement to a humanitarian truce… This is the only way that will allow international organizations, the International Committee of the Red Cross and its partners to provide the necessary assistance,” she said.

Fighting began in Sudan since April 15 between the Rapid Response Force led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and the regular army. The opposing forces in Sudan exchanged conflicting statements about military successes and control of facilities, which led to a large-scale information war in the media and social networks. Last Friday, the two sides announced a truce on the occasion of Eid al-Fitr. And the two parties announced their willingness to hold it for three days.

The death toll from the clashes in the country has risen to 600, according to the Sudanese Minister of Health. The representative of the World Health Organization in Sudan, Nima Saeed Abid, said in a weekly briefing to the United Nations in Geneva on Tuesday that 459 people were killed and 4,072 injured. Armed conflict.