A total of 36 Belgians currently still in Sudan have been identified following the sixth day of fighting, Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib told a plenary session on Thursday in response to a question from Federal MP of the Flemish liberal Open VLD party Tim Vandenput.
It mostly concerns dual nationals and NGO workers. 30 were able to be contacted by the Belgian embassy in Cairo, Egypt. Foreign Affairs is still without news of six people.
Those who were contacted are all safe and in a relatively secure location. However, an evacuation is “not on the cards, because the situation in (the capital) Khartoum is too dangerous,” Lahbib added, referring to an attack on a convoy of US personnel.
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She did not comment on the case of the injured Belgian, Wim Fransen, who heads the European Union humanitarian mission in Sudan.
Since Saturday, the army and paramilitaries have been clashing in the country. The conflict had been simmering for weeks between army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the country’s de facto leader, and his number two, the head of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, known as "Hemedti." Together they ousted civilians from power in the October 2021 coup.
