Sudan: First flight evacuating British civilians lands in Cyprus – as PM says next 24 hours ‘absolutely critical’
The first flight carrying British civilians out of Sudan has landed in Cyprus – as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the next 24 hours are “absolutely critical”.
A passenger plane with about 40 civilians on board landed at Larnaca airport, a spokesperson for Cyprus’s foreign ministry said.
Around 4,000 UK passport holders have been stranded in the east African country after heavy fighting broke out.
An RAF plane collected people from an airfield near Khartoum, with priority being given to families with children, the elderly and people with medical conditions.
And two more flights are expected overnight – though Britons will also have to reach the airfield themselves, negotiating checkpoints and potential outbreaks of fighting, as no escorts are being provided.
Evacuation effort begins for stranded Britons – Sudan latest
Africa minister Andrew Mitchell said all British nationals in the country who want to leave should head to the airstrip “before 8pm Khartoum time” – 7pm BST – to be processed for departure, but reiterated they would have to make it there “by their own steam”.
He also appealed to people to continue to register their location with the Foreign Office, and said the government was “continuing to work up other options to assist British nationals wanting to leave Sudan, including other points of exit.”
More than 1,400 military personnel are involved in the UK operation: Pics: MoD
It appears to be a race against time as there are fears over whether a 72-hour ceasefire, which began late on Monday, will hold.
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said it was “impossible for us to predict how long this opportunity will last”.
Around 1,400 military personnel are believed to be involved in the UK operation.
The first Hercules left Sudan this morning, according to a flight-tracking site, and landed at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus this afternoon.
It is understood to have been carrying an advance team, rather than people evacuated from Khartoum.
An RAF Hercules was tracked leaving Sudan and heading towards Cyprus. Pic: Flightradar24
Mr Mitchell said around 200 people were working in a crisis centre in the Foreign Office “day and night”, with a range of government departments “joined at the hip”.
The PM visited staff earlier to thank them for their work, telling them: “Keep at it… the next 24 hours are absolutely critical.
“We can make a big push as we’re already doing and you can help us get everyone who wants to come home, home.”
The government has faced criticism for evacuating diplomatic staff two days before a full evacuation of British nationals began.
But Mr Sunak said he had been chairing emergency meetings on the crisis everyday since Thursday – including one his minister revealed took place at 3.15am on Saturday morning – and he was “pleased that we were actually one of the first countries to safely evacuate our diplomats and their families”.
He added: “It was right that we prioritise them, because they were being specifically targeted.
“Now, the security situation on the ground in Sudan is complicated, it is volatile and we wanted to make sure we could put in place processes that are going to work for people, that are going to be safe and effective and we now have over 100 people on the ground in Sudan.
“The first flight has already left with British nationals, we’ll have more flights this evening, and we’ll have many more into tomorrow and that is down to the hard work of lots of people and we will keep at it.”
Speaking to the Foreign Affairs committee, Mr Mitchell was also questioned as to why other countries – namely France – had already carried out evacuations of their citizens and was asked if the country was doing a better job.
“No I don’t,” he said. “I think everyone is going about this in their own way [and] we have a much larger number of citizens to take out.”
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Sudan ‘fundamentally different’ to Afghanistan – Cleverly
About 4,000 UK passport holders are thought to be trapped in Sudan as rival military factions battle for control.
Hundreds of people have died since the fighting started on 15 April and the evacuation comes after days of pressure for a plan to get Britons out.
Food and fuel have soared in price, electricity and internet are cut off in much of the country and the clashes have left governments scrambling to get their citizens and diplomats out.
Mr Cleverly said contact had been made with leaders of the two factions “calling on them to allow British nationals, dual nationals and minors to be evacuated”.
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Briton escapes Sudan on French flight
Sky’s Alistair Bunkall – in Cyprus – saw the first flight take off from RAF Akrotiri and said many more are likely to follow considering the number of people who need evacuating.
It takes about three and a half hours to travel from the Mediterranean base to Sudan.
The Foreign Office said it is also looking at other potential “points of exit” – possibly by sea via Port Sudan, according to Bunkall.
Two ships, RFA Cardigan Bay and HMS Lancaster, are being lined up in case they are needed, said the Foreign Office.
The airborne evacuations carry obvious risks for the RAF, such as potential exposure to gunfire or even missiles, according to Sky’s defence editor Deborah Haynes.
Although they shouldn’t be targeted, she said there is “always the possibility of a mistake, a miscalculation or a deliberate attack given the chaos and unpredictably on the ground”.
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Streets of Khartoum devastated by fighting
Read more:
Which countries have evacuated their citizens from Sudan?
What’s happening in Sudan?
Some UK citizens have manged to escape on evacuation flights operated by other countries.
Germany, Italy, Spain and France are among those that have already rescued hundreds of people from dozens of countries on their own flights.
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An elderly woman could be seen being helped off the military plane.
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However, the Foreign Office said only British passport holders would be able to get a place on the UK planes.
Britain’s diplomats and their families were evacuated over the weekend in a precarious mission by elite troops that took place under the cover of darkness.
Some senior Foreign Office officials will be at the airstrip to coordinate the evacuations.
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Ben Wallace has told MPs that 120 British forces had arrived at an airfield in Sudan to help with the evacuation of British nationals, but warned the situation continued to remain ‘volatile’.
The violence in Sudan comes after rival generals fell out over a deal to incorporate the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) group into the military.
The army and RSF mounted a coup together in 2021 after long-time ruler Omar al Bashir was overthrown in a popular uprising two years earlier.
However, their relationship broke down during negotiations to integrate and form a civilian government.
UK
More prisoners are being transferred to less secure jails to tackle overcrowding crisis, Sky News understands
The prison service is starting to recategorise the security risk of offenders to ease capacity pressures, Sky News understands.
It involves lowering or reconsidering the threshold of certain offenders to move them from the closed prison estate (category A to C) to the open estate (category D) because there are more free cell spaces there.
Examples of this could include discounting adjudications – formal hearings when a prisoner is accused of breaking the rules – for certain offenders, so they don’t act as official reasons not to transport them to a lower-security jail.
Prisoners are also categorised according to an Incentives and Earned Privileges (IEP) status. There are different levels – basic, standard and enhanced – based on how they keep to the rules or display a commitment to rehabilitation.
Usually ‘enhanced’ prisoners take part in meaningful activity – employment and training – making them eligible among other factors, to be transferred to the open estate.
Insiders suggest this system in England and Wales is being rejigged so that greater numbers of ‘standard’ prisoners can transfer, whereas before it would more typically be those with ‘enhanced’ status.
Open prisons have minimal security and allow eligible prisoners to spend time on day release away from the prison on license conditions to carry out work or education.
The aim is to help reintegrate them back into society once they leave. As offenders near the end of their sentence, they are housed in open prisons.
Many of those released as part of the early release scheme in October after serving 40% of their sentence were freed from open prisons.
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Overcrowding in UK prisons
They were the second tranche of offenders freed as part of this scheme, and had been sentenced to five years or more.
Despite early release measures, prisons are still battling a chronic overcrowding crisis. The male estate is almost full, operating at around 97% capacity.
Read more from Sky News:
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Prison recalls soar as justice system struggles
Campaigners demand IPP sentences are scrapped
Sky News understands there continue to be particular pinch points across the country.
Southwest England struggled over the weekend with three space-related ‘lockouts’ – which means prisoners are held in police suites or transferred to other jails because there is no space.
One inmate is believed to have been transported from Exeter to Cardiff.
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “The new government inherited a prison system on the point of collapse. We took the necessary action to stop our prisons from overflowing and to protect the public.
“This is not a new scheme. Only less-serious offenders who meet a strict criteria are eligible, and the Prison Service can exclude anyone who can’t be managed safely in a category D prison.”
UK
Prisoner driven to psychosis after stealing mobile phone unable to undergo health test ‘due to lack of staff’
A prisoner who has served 12 years in jail for stealing a mobile phone was unable to attend a psychiatric assessment because of a lack of staff, his family claims.
According to psychiatrists, Thomas White has developed psychosis as a direct result of being handed a controversial indefinite jail term called imprisonment for public protection (IPP), which was abolished in 2012.
His sister has been campaigning for over a year to have him transferred to a hospital, which would require him to receive sign-off from two separate psychiatrists.
Ms White said her brother, who experiences religious hallucinations, was placed in segregation and needed three prison staff to release him from his cell – but they were not available due to staff shortages.
Thomas White pictured with his sister Clara White and their mother Margaret at Manchester prison
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Sky News understands that Lord Blunkett, the former Labour home secretary who introduced the IPP sentence but now campaigns for reform, has asked prisons minister Lord Timpson to investigate.
What are IPP sentences?
Thomas White, now aged 40, was one of more than 8,000 offenders who were given an IPP sentence – a type of open-ended prison sentence the courts could impose from 2005 until they were scrapped.
The sentence – which has been described as a form of “psychological torture” by human rights experts – was intended for serious violent and sexual offenders who posed a significant risk of serious harm to the public but whose crimes did not warrant a life term.
Although the government’s stated aim was public protection, concerns quickly grew that IPP sentences were being applied too broadly and catching more minor offenders, partly due to the fact that previous convictions were taken into account when determining whether someone posed a “significant risk”.
Thomas was sentenced to two years for stealing the mobile phone in a non-violent exchange back in 2012 – but because he had 16 previous convictions for theft and robberies, he was given an IPP sentence and has served 12 years.
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What is an IPP sentence?
The coalition government scrapped the sentence in 2012, but the change was not applied retrospectively, meaning 2,852 prisoners remain behind bars – including 1,227 who have never been released.
The new government is under increasing pressure to act on the IPP crisis given they were introduced by Lord Blunkett – who has since said he feels “deep regret” about the way the sentence was used.
‘My brother is being seriously failed’
In an email to Lord Blunkett, seen by Sky News, Ms White said: “My brother had a psychiatric appointment on the 1 November to see if he could be admitted to an outside hospital as he has to have two signatures to be transferred to an outside hospital.
“The system is nothing but criminal – people like my brother are being seriously failed.
“We waited a long time to have Thomas assessed again by the psychiatrist. We more than likely won’t get the assessment again.”
Read more:
11 years for stealing a mobile phone: Inside the lives of IPP prisoners
The £1bn cost of keeping people in prison on indeterminate IPP sentences
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Inside the lives of IPP prisoners
James Frith, the Labour MP for Bury North, said: “Thomas’ case highlights why these sentences were abolished over a decade ago.
“Thomas’s indefinite imprisonment has had a hugely detrimental impact on his mental and physical wellbeing. Thomas should be a patient, not a prisoner.
“We know the prison system is underfunded and overcapacity, but this is no excuse for failing Thomas. I have been working with Clara, Thomas’ sister, and I have written to the Lord Chancellor to raise Thomas’s case and the wider issues of IPPs.
“Thomas has been denied appropriate assessment and care for too long, we will not give up this fight for what is right.”
The Ministry of Justice does not comment on individual medical cases.
It is understood Lord Timpson will respond to Lord Blunkett in due course.
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