“High Risk” Of Biological Hazard In Sudan As Fighters Take Over Laboratory, Warns WHO

Geneva: The World Health Organisation issued a warning about the “high risk of biological hazard” in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan after one of the combatants took control of a lab that was housing cholera and measles germs and ousted the technicians inside.

After a three-day cease-fire was reached between Sudan’s army and a rival paramilitary group, hostilities in the country subsided overnight, allowing more civilians to evacuate on Tuesday and other governments to take them in.

Following attacks on diplomats, including the murder of an Egyptian attache who was shot on his way to work, many nations have successfully evacuated their citizens from war-torn Sudan. Additionally, several nations are expropriating their private citizens.

India launched the evacuation process named Operation Kaveri to rescue Indians from violence-torn Sudan. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in a tweet on Monday said, “Operation Kaveri gets underway to bring back our citizens stranded in Sudan. About 500 Indians have reached Port Sudan. More on their way. Our ships and aircraft are set to bring them back home. Committed to assisting all our brethren in Sudan.”

Two C-130 aircraft and the naval ship INS Sumedha are on standby to safely evacuate stranded Indians. According to the official data, the number of Indians in Sudan is around 4,000. S Jaishankar held talks with his counterparts in Saudi Arabia and the UAE for assistance during the rescue operation.

After more than a week of ferocious fighting, Sudanese families also took advantage of the respite to abandon their houses and look for transportation that would take them to safety, fearing that the emigration of foreigners would put locals at greater risk.

Despite the unpredictability of the situation there, tens of thousands of people have departed in the last several days for neighbours Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, and South Sudan.

In the third-largest country in Africa, where a third of the 46 million residents required aid even before the violence, the situation for those who are still there are rapidly getting worse. Some people were shocked by the departure of some foreign ambassadors and assistance organisations.