Amid lingering war with Ukraine, Russia’s armed forces on Tuesday, May 1, reportedly evacuated over two hundred people from Sudan on four military transport planes.
Russian defence ministry confirmed this in a statement on Tuesday, noting that the evacuees included diplomats, military personnel, other Russian nationals, and citizens of “countries of the former Soviet Union and other friendly countries who asked for help”.
“Four Il-76 aircraft of the Russian Aerospace Forces are bringing more than 200 people from the Republic of Sudan to the Russian Federation,” the ministry reportedly disclosed hours ago on Telegram.
Recall that Russia is yet to end its war with Ukraine. Recently Russia reportedly launched a series of missiles at Ukrainian cities in the second pre-dawn attack in three days.
Pavlohrad, a logistics hub near the central city of Dnipro, was hit ahead of a much-anticipated counter-offensive by Ukraine. The strike sparked a major fire, destroyed dozens of houses, and wounded 34 people, OsunDaily News understands.
Sudan Crisis
OsunDaily News reports that the chaotic situation in Sudan started on April 15, 2023, between the country’s army under the leadership of Chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) under the supervision of General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.
Hundreds of people have been killed in the internal war in Sudan. Also, scores of people have sustained degrees of injury while citizens of other countries and indigenes have fled the warring zone as the fight lingers.
Meanwhile, one of the buses deployed to evacuate Nigerians stranded in the crossfire of the war in Sudan developed a fault and caught fire on Monday.
OsunDaily News understands twenty-six buses were involved in the movement of the stranded Nigerians from Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, to Port Sudan, but one of the buses caught fire in the process.
There were 50 Nigerians in the bus marked Katsina 1 when it developed a fault and later caught fire, but they all escaped unhurt.
Following the incident, forty out of the 50 passengers were later distributed to the other buses evacuating the students, while the remaining passengers spent the night where the incident happened alongside the driver at the RSF checkpoint.
“One of the buses conveying some 50 Nigerian students from Sudan with a tag number (Katsina 1) heading to Port Sudan as part of the second batch of FGN evacuation got damaged due to excessive heat from one of the vehicle’s tyres.
“Dr Hashim Idris Na’Allah, the chairman of the Nigerian Elders’ Forum in Sudan, was one of the passengers in the said bus, which contained a total of 50 students (49 males, 1 female).
“The incident happened around 2:30 am Sudan time.
“The driver stopped the bus near an RSF checkpoint just before the tire exploded, causing a fire to start.
“All the passengers escaped unhurt.
“Forty out of the 50 passengers were later distributed to the other buses evacuating the students, while the remaining passengers spent the night where the incident happened alongside the driver at the RSF checkpoint.
“The students said the RSF really did their possible best to help the passengers and offered them with cups of tea in the morning before they left,” Sani Aliyu who is in Sudan disclosed as quoted by Daily Trust.
