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FAO staff evacuate from Sudanese capital — source

He informed that a group of FAO employees was at the moment in a hotel in the center of the Sudanese capital

CAIRO, April 22. /TASS/. Employees of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) office in Sudan are being evacuated from the capital city of Khartoum, an FAO official currently in the city told TASS on Saturday.

"The situation in Khartoum is very difficult," he said in a telephone conversation with a TASS correspondent. "Now there is an evacuation of our organization's staff from the hotel," the source said, adding that there have been constant problems with mobile communication over the last few days.

He informed that a group of FAO employees was at the moment in a hotel in the center of the Sudanese capital. "We are packing," he said. According to him, they are "being evacuated to Khartoum suburbs." However, he did not specify when and where exactly the FAO employees would be relocated.

On Friday evening, the Sudanese army announced its readiness to observe a humanitarian ceasefire in the country for three days from Friday. On Thursday, the Rapid Support Forces said it had agreed to a ceasefire with the Sudanese army for the holiday of Eid Al-Fitr, which marks the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

According to a Sudanese Foreign Ministry spokesman quoted by the Al Hadath TV channel, the ministry "positively accepts the countries' requests to evacuate their citizens". He added that the ceasefire that was announced "came about because of the humanitarian situation and the appeals of countries for the return [from Sudan] of their citizens."

The situation in Sudan escalated due to disagreements between SAF commander Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who also heads the Sovereign Council (the country’s governing body), and his deputy in the council, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (Hemedti), the Rapid Support Forces chief. On the morning of April 15, clashes broke out between the two groups near a military base in Merowe and in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. According to the latest figures from the doctor’s union, there are almost 200 civilians, more than 1,000 wounded. Over 3,300 were forced to leave their homes.

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