Spain began this Sunday afternoon the evacuation operation of the 60 compatriots —and twenty other Latin American and European citizens— trapped in Khartoum due to the fighting between the Sudanese army and the paramilitaries of the Rapid Support Forces, who have plunged the country into chaos, as confirmed by military sources to La Vanguardia.
Everything was prepared in Djibouti, some 1,300 kilometers from the capital of Sudan, to begin the evacuation when there was the necessary security space to be able to land the military planes in Sudan. In this State of the Horn of Africa there was already a Spanish military detachment within the European Union Operation Atalanta, focused on the fight against piracy. Until there, Spain sent several four soldiers last Friday, as revealed yesterday by the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, who did not go into details for security reasons.
What the Defense Minister did confirm is that in addition to the material resources, a special operations team was also prepared in the area to deal with the "complicated and difficult" evacuation of the trapped citizens. The intention is to evacuate the 60 Spaniards, but a large part of this group had not managed to reach the Spanish Embassy yesterday, where they have regrouped for the evacuation.
To facilitate the transfer to the Embassy —or the ambassador's residence—, a sufficient team of agents from the Special Operations Group, the elite group of the National Police, has also been prepared. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs plans that the evacuation will be completed when the Spanish ambassador, Antonio Isidro González, becomes the last to leave the country. Before, the Embassy staff, made up of six people, will also do it.
