Brexit Curse - Sudan: (UK) Too Late Evacuation, Get Help by EU Faster Than Tories, In Afghanistan Leaving Nepali
Around 6.02 pm Khartoum (or 5.02 pm London), 1st batch UK air force to evacuate UK nationalities (FINALLY) leave Sudan, after Germany gave permission for the UK to fly a rescue plane from an airfield north of Khartoum that it has been controlling to coordinate its own rescue from the country. The first plane carrying British nationals has left Sudan, with two more flights planned overnight. When several EU countries may already have a 4th or 5th batch operation of evacuation underway.
Speaks volumes to the sheer state of the UK right now. Their citizens wanted to be evacuated from a war zone in Sudan. The UK's response: "please check our website", which only has travel advice not to go to Sudan. In the end UK citizens in Sudan got evacuated by the German and French
Elizabeth Boughey, British teacher in Sudan rescued by France after receiving 'no support from UK.” France evacuated 538 people (at least until 6.02 pm Khartoum), including 209 French and other nationalities.
Why France already set an operation (of evacuation), because France have a military base in Djibouti, Sudan’s neighbor, Les forces françaises stationnées à Djibouti (The French forces stationed in Djibouti'), the largest French military contingent outside France. Djibouti is very unique because only Djibouti in the world, agreed provide area or land for (foreign) military base from U.S., France, China, and Japan. Beyond grateful for French & German officials who are rescuing British nationals (and other European nationalities) still trapped in the war zone. Hoping Sudan’s current cease fire sticks. Like France, (at least until 6.02 pm Khartoum) Germany already evacuated 500 people across nationalities.
Unlike other countries who already prepare evacuation even before Eid Fitr (21/22 April), UK citizens feel 'abandoned, stranded' as Sudan evacuations fail to materialize.
Belated-chaos evacuation by UK, more questioned after today Guardian uploaded exclusive investigation: More than 100 Nepali guards who risked their lives to protect British embassy staff in Afghanistan before the Taliban seized back control were secretly returned to Nepal against their wishes shortly after being airlifted to safety in the UK, the Guardian can reveal. So chaotic Afghanistan August-September 2021 not to be “a deep learn” by UK officials for new evacuation moment about (latest) horrible situation in Sudan since April 15th.
More from Guardian. Hundreds of Nepali nationals and a smaller number of Indian nationals who protected key institutions in Kabul were brought to the UK on an RAF flight during the chaotic evacuation of the Afghan capital by western countries in August 2021, as victorious Taliban forces closed in.
It has now emerged that days after they arrived in the UK, more than 100 of these evacuees were forcibly removed to their home countries even though many had been issued with six-month visas on arrival.
The Guardian has interviewed some of the deported guards, who believed their lives were in danger in Nepal. Some were forcibly removed from hotel rooms in the UK in areas including Northampton, Reading, Oxford and Swindon before completing what at the time was a mandatory 10-day period of Covid-19 pandemic hotel quarantine for new arrivals in the UK.
Nepal was designated as a red-list country, with UK government instructions that people should not travel there, when the former guards were flown back in 2021.
Some have managed to find their way back to the UK since 2021 and have claimed asylum.
In March, at least 10 Nepali guards who protected the British embassy staff in Kabul and were still living in the UK were arrested in a raid at their west London hotel and detained by the Home Office.
After the detentions came to light, the Home Office issued a statement saying that the removals of those detained had been paused “pending further review”. It said the evacuees were flown from Kabul as “a gesture of goodwill” with the understanding that they were expected to return to their home countries.
More than 100 of those forcibly removed from the UK have written to Rudra Dhakal, a British resident of Nepali heritage who is supporting them, with the Home Office, Foreign Office, Ministry of Defence, Nepalese government and UNHCR copied in, in a letter titled “Urgent appeal for further humanitarian protection in the UK”.
The deported guards wrote: “We were misled by the UK border security force. Therefore they forcefully deported us to Nepal against our will. At the time of our deportation we were never given the choice of staying in the UK for further humanitarian protection.”
Dhakal, who is continuing to support the guards, said: “These bravest of the brave veterans said they provided frontline security … but they were left behind in the end. They were used as proxies on the frontline of the war.”
One of those deported is Deepak Punmagar, 42. “We were always under threat in Afghanistan,” he told the Guardian. “We didn’t know if we would survive. When I arrived in the UK I felt safe but I was deported to Nepal on 17 August.”