The government rescues 542 Indonesian nationals during the first stage of evacuation from Sudan that is engulfed in military conflict since April 15.
"Some 542 Indonesian nationals are on the way from Port Sudan to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia," Protection for Indonesian Citizens and Legal Entities Director at the Foreign Affairs Ministry Judha Nugraha noted through a message, Tuesday.
Jeddah will be the stopover for Indonesian nationals evacuated from Sudan before they are flown to the country.
The number of Indonesian nationals evacuated during the first stage increased, from 538 people, according to the figure announced by Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi on Monday, to 542 people.
Nugraha explained that this additional figure came from Indonesian university students that join the Khartoum Embassy team and Indonesians in Port Sudan evacuated through other routes.
"Meanwhile, the second stage of evacuation is executed from Khartoum to Port Sudan," he remarked.
According to Marsudi, rescuing Indonesian nationals from Sudan is not easy since it is undertaken amid the conflict that continues to occur between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Given that the situation on the field shifts rapidly coupled with the issue of fuel limitation for vehicles transporting the evacuated nationals, Indonesia cannot evacuate everyone at the same time.
Within the second stage of the evacuation, the government plans to evacuate 298 Indonesian nationals.
However, the figure will increase after the minister urges other nationals to immediately report themselves to the embassy to be evacuated from Sudan.
According to the Khartoum Indonesian Embassy's data, it was recorded that 1,209 Indonesian nationals live in Sudan. Most of them are students that reside in the capital city of Khartoum.
The presence and safety of Indonesian nationals has become a cause for concern since Khartoum and its surrounding area is the main deadly battleground between SAF and RSF.
King Faisal Naval Base in Jeddah receives the largest evacuation yet from Sudan
A ship carrying another batch of evacuees from Sudan arrived in Jeddah early on Wednesday as the Saudi Arabian government continues efforts to move its citizens, as well as foreign nationals, into safety.
The ship transported 1,687 people from 58 nationalities from Port Sudan on east coast of Sudan on the Red Sea.
#WATCH: Evacuees fleeing #Sudan become emotional as they are greeted by #SaudiArabia navy forces while they disembark from a ship in #Jeddah, with one passenger chanting on her safe arrival to the Kingdom.https://t.co/3WkNAkNCp2 pic.twitter.com/d6Omn4YM0w
— Arab News (@arabnews) April 26, 2023
There were 46 Americans, 40 Britons, 11 Germans, 4 French, 13 Saudis, 560 Indonesians, 239 Yemenis, 198 Sudanese and 26 Turkish citizens on board the ship. The Saudi-flagged ship “Amana” docked at King Faisal Naval Base just before 5 a.m.
As passengers disembarked, they were welcomed by base officials and diplomatic authorities from various nationalities.
Saudi Arabia has received several rounds of evacuees by air and sea, starting with boats that arrived in Jeddah on Saturday carrying 150 people including foreign diplomats and officials.
On Monday, a C-130 Hercules military plane flew dozens of South Korean civilians to Jeddah’s King Abdullah Air Base, and a boat ferried nearly 200 people from 14 countries across the Red Sea from Port Sudan.
Dr. Abdulaziz Alwasil, Saudi Arabia’s Permanent Representative of Saudi Arabia to the United Nations, earlier stressed on the importance of preserving the current truce in Sudan.
At the UN Security Council in New York, he said the Kingdom is working with all its partners to stabilize the truce in Sudan, praising the cooperation of the Sudanese parties to facilitate the evacuation of civilians.
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