UK widens evacuation from Sudan with extra flight

The UK said Sunday it would operate an extra evacuation flight to rescue more of its citizens from war-torn Sudan, as the total number already airlifted topped 2,000.

The final Royal Air Force (RAF) flight using the Wadi Saeedna airfield north of Khartoum left late Saturday, four hours behind schedule.

The government said it would lay on the additional flight on Monday from Port Sudan on the Red Sea, where Britain has opened a consular office to help people who were seeking to travel by ship to Saudi Arabia.

"The UK has now airlifted over 2,100 people to safety from Sudan," Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said.

"Evacuation flights have ended from Wadi Saeedna but our rescue efforts continue from Port Sudan," he added.

"We continue to do everything in our power to secure a long-term ceasefire, a stable transition to civilian rule and an end (to) the violence in Sudan."

The UK government denies it has abandoned anyone in Sudan, after it was accused by opposition parties of repeating the mistakes of its chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.

One Turkish aircraft was shot at in Sudan last week, Transport Secretary Mark Harper told Sky News earlier Sunday, "demonstrating that that evacuation was not without risk, and we therefore can't stay there (Wadi Saeedna) indefinitely".

Some 2,000 Britons in Sudan had signed on to a Foreign Office list, and anyone eligible was given until early Saturday to reach the airfield for processing and boarding of the final flights.

Britons and their dependants who have gathered by the Red Sea have until 1000 GMT on Monday to reach the UK processing centre at Port Sudan International Airport, the Foreign Office said.

HMS Lancaster, a Royal Navy frigate, is also on hand at Port Sudan to help in any seaborne evacuation, according to the defence ministry.

After strong criticism at home, the government late Friday allowed Sudanese doctors working in Britain's crisis-wracked National Health Service to join the flights.

Abdulrahman Babiker, a doctor at a hospital in England's northern city of Manchester, was one of those initially refused a place before he was allowed to join an RAF flight to Cyprus.

"I am happy that I am finally in a safe place, away from a war and on my way back to the UK," Babiker told the BBC.

"At the same time I feel down that my family -- my dad, mum, brother and sister -- are still endangered by this deadly fighting in my country," Babiker added.

"I am thinking about them now and trying to work out what I can do to help them escape the danger zone."