The evacuees of the Sudanese armed forces from the border to the Horn of Africa on Monday night fleeing to Jordan

KHARTOUM, Sudan — As foreign governments airlifted hundreds of their diplomats and other citizens from Sudan, Sudanese on Monday desperately sought ways to escape the chaos amid fears the country’s two rival generals could escalate their all-out battle for power once evacuations were completed.

“We traveled 15 hours on land at our own risk,” Suliman al-Kouni, an Egyptian student, said at the Arqin border crossing with Egypt. There were buses in the line at the remote desert crossing. Al-Kouni was among dozens of Egyptian students making the trek. He said many of his friends are trapped in Sudan.

Prominent Sudanese film maker Amjad Abual-Ala wrote on Facebook that his family were on the road from Sudan to Cairo through Aswan.

There was a hoped for cease-fire in the city of Omdurman which lies across the Nile River from Khartoum.

“We did not see such a truce,” Amin al-Tayed said from his home near state TV headquarters in Omdurman, adding that heavy gunfire and thundering explosions rocked the city.

Over 420 people, including 264 civilians, have been killed and more than 3,700 wounded in nine days of fighting between the Sudanese armed forces and the powerful paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces.

The armed forces are said to have attacked an upscale neighborhood in north of Khartoum. There was no immediate army comment. The ongoing violence has affected operations at the main international airport, destroying civilian planes and damaging at least one runway, and thick, black smoke rose above it. Other airports also have been knocked out of operation.

Still, the two sides have eased fighting enough for the stream of international military aircraft to land in the Khartoum area and extract foreign citizens since Sunday.

The American special operations forces moved in to Khartoum early on the Sunday to evacuate their personnel from the US Embassy.

Over 400 people, including citizens from 28 countries, were brought out of France by plane on four flights to the Horn of Africa nation of Djibouti. Dutch people were among the evacuees who were flown out of Sudan to Jordan in the early hours of Monday. More than 300 people have left Sudan and are currently in Jordan, through three flights conducted by Germany.

Evacuations appeared likely to continue if conditions of fighting allow. The American government was unwilling to evacuate thousands of private U.S. citizens because it was too dangerous.

“We won’t go home, but we will fight,” says U.K. Secretary of State Robert H.M. Mitchell, Foreign Policy Director Josep Borrell

Japanese nationals are being transported by road to an eastern town to be picked up by planes, according to Japanese media. Both France and Germany said they were ready to do more flights.

The British Prime Minister said that the U.K. had evacuated British diplomatic staff and dependents. But Britain’s Middle East Minister, Andrew Mitchell, said about 2,000 U.K. citizens still in Sudan have registered with the embassy for potential evacuation. Many Britons in the country complain about a lack of information from the government and they don’t know anything about any plans to leave.

It was reported that Egypt urged its citizens living in other parts of Sudan to head to the consular offices in Port Sudan and Wadi Halfa to be evacuated.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell told reporters in Luxembourg on Monday that the evacuation operation has been successful, with more than 1,000 brought out by EU members.

Despite reports of persistent heavy gunfire in the streets of Khartoum, Thomas-Greenfield tells Inskeep the U.S. will keep trying to broker a lasting truce. We are going to push both parties to the negotiating table by continuing our intense efforts at senior levels.

The army chief and the RSF leader seem determined to fight to the end. Thousands of Sudanese have left Khartoum and other parts of the country, but millions are not hungry or thirsty in their homes, the UN agencies said.

Even as Sudan’s warring generals agreed to a 72-hour truce, a physician in the capital of Khartoum says medical care has grown increasingly more dangerous in regions where shelling and airstrikes began more than ten days ago.

The Burhan-Dagalo-Reionized War in Sudan and the Resilience of the Generals against a Revolutionary Revolution

The generals came to power after a pro-democracy uprising led to the ousting of a strongman. In 2021, the generals joined forces to seize power in a coup.

The current violence came after Burhan and Dagalo fell out over a recent internationally brokered deal with democracy activists that was meant to incorporate the RSF into the military and eventually lead to civilian rule.

Khalid Omar, a spokesman for the pro-democracy bloc that seeks to restore civilian rule, urged both generals to resolve their differences. “There is an opportunity to stop this war and put the county on the right path,” he wrote on Facebook. “This is a war fueled by groups from the deposed regime who want it to continue.”

In other fighting, a senior military official said it repelled an RSF attack on Kober Prison in Khartoum where al-Bashir and former officials in his movement are held. A number of prisoners fled and a few were killed or wounded, but al-Bashir and other high-profile inmates were in a well-guarded area, and there was no danger to the public.

“This will have a major effect on residents’ ability to stay safe and will impact the evacuation programs that are ongoing,” said Netblocks director Alp Toker. There is a The writers who contributed to the report were Isabel DeBre in Jerusalem, Michael Corder in The Netherlands, Samy Magdy in Cairo, Franco D’Emilio in Rome, and Fay Abuelgasim in Lebanon.

The U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, and the Sudan War on Singapore after the Khartoum Deluge

Doka believes other physicians were transported to makeshift hospitals to treat the people of the opposing military forces at will. He says he’s treating patients at his home because of the “real threat” of abduction.

“Right now we are only able to work within the parameters of our neighborhoods,” Doka says. “I’m literally, in some cases, having patients come to my house and operating on them.”

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, tells Morning Edition she’s hopeful that — unlike a cease-fire declared last week — a truce brokered by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia will hold, opening a window for more medical and humanitarian care and civilian departures.

“We’re hoping this is better,” Thomas-Greenfield says in an interview with NPR’s Steve Inskeep. “What we really are working toward is getting both parties to agree to implement a sustained nationwide cease-fire and go back to the negotiating table.”

Following the shuttering of the U.S. Embassy and an airlift of diplomatic personnel and their families from Khartoum on Saturday, an estimated 16,000 Americans, many with dual citizenship, remain in Sudan.

The diplomatic withdrawal is labeled a “temporary suspension” by Thomas-Greenfield. “We intend to resume those operations once it is safe for us to do so.”

The ambassador to the UN describes land convoys in which the US is assisting, just as it did with a U.N. evacuation Monday that involved about 1,000 people. The president directed our security and other forces to provide intel.

Sudanese civilians have crossed into bordering countries to escape the conflict since a power sharing agreement between two military commanders broke down. The commander of Sudan’s armed forces, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan and the leader of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, Gen. Mohammen Hamdan Dagalo, worked together to overthrow Sudan’s government in a military coup in 2021. Aid groups say that both Burhan and Hemedit have committed atrocities in the past.