Pakistan's evacuation operation from Sudan to be completed in 48 hours: FO

93 more Pakistanis, stranded in Sudan, arrived at the Islamabad airport via the PK754 flight on Monday, the Foreign Office said in a statement, adding the evacuation operation will be completed in the next 24-48 hours.

"Earlier, 636 stranded Pakistanis returned home and reached Jinnah International Airport, Karachi from Sudan via Jeddah on five special PAF flights till date," the statement read, sharing an update regarding the arrival of the fourth batch.

The total number of Pakistanis that have landed so far is 729.

The FO further shared that nearly all of the 1,000 Pakistanis would be evacuated from the conflict-ridden country in the next 24 to 48 hours.

Pakistan thanks Saudi Arabia

Earlier today, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs — responding to a statement by the Saudi foreign ministry — took to Twitter to thank Saudi Arabian for their support and assistance to distressed Pakistanis in a difficult time.

“We are grateful to the brotherly country of Saudi Arabia for their support and assistance to Pakistanis in distress in this difficult time,” the tweet read.

The Saudi foreign ministry had shared an update on the arrival of Pakistani in Jeddah a day earlier.

“A transport plane belonging to the Royal Saudi Air Force arrived in Jeddah today with 45 Saudi citizens and 36 people of Pakistani nationality, and the ship of H M S ‘Al-Diriyah’ arrived in Jeddah, with 52 nationals of brotherly and friendly countries on board,” the Kingdom’s ministry wrote in its tweet.

The FO has been working to repatriate Pakistanis stranded in war-hit Sudan ever since the conflict began earlier this month.

The Pakistanis in Sudan are first evacuated to Port Sudan and then transferred to Jeddah where the PAF is bringing them back home.

Situation in Sudan

Fighting broke out in Sudan on April 15 between forces loyal to army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy-turned-rival Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

More than 500 people have been killed in the clashes so far.

Daglo’s RSF emerged from the Janjaweed fighters whom former strongman Omar al-Bashir unleashed in the Darfur region, where they were accused of war crimes including genocide.

The military toppled Bashir in April 2019 following mass citizen protests.

The two generals seized power in a 2021 coup, but later fell out in a bitter power struggle, most recently centred on the planned integration of the RSF into the regular army.