{"id":20551,"date":"2023-04-23T19:53:13","date_gmt":"2023-04-23T19:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/uk-military-have-evacuated\/"},"modified":"2023-04-23T19:54:40","modified_gmt":"2023-04-23T19:54:40","slug":"uk-military-have-evacuated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/uk-military-have-evacuated\/","title":{"rendered":"UK military have evacuated diplomatic staff from Sudan, Sunak says"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>LONDON (Reuters) -British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Sunday the country&#8217;s armed forces evacuated diplomatic staff and their family members from Sudan.<\/p>\n<p>Sunak paid tribute to what he called a &#8220;complex and rapid&#8221; evacuation after he said there had been a significant escalation in violence and threats to embassy staff. But British nationals living in Sudan were not rescued.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I pay tribute to the commitment of our diplomats and bravery of the military personnel who carried out this difficult operation,&#8221; Sunak said on Twitter. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are continuing to pursue every avenue to end the bloodshed in Sudan and ensure the safety of British nationals remaining in the country.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Britain&#8217;s defence minister, Ben Wallace, said British troops undertook the rescue operation alongside the United States, France, and other unnamed allies.<\/p>\n<p>The eruption of fighting in Sudan eight days ago between the army and Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group has killed hundreds of civilians and trapped many thousands in their homes.<\/p>\n<p>Wallace said more than 1,200 military personnel were involved in organising and carrying out the rescue operation.<\/p>\n<p>The foreign minister James Cleverly said a top priority remained the safety of British nationals. He advised British citizens in the country to shelter indoors and to tell the foreign ministry where they are staying. <\/p>\n<p>A British citizen named as William told Sky News he had not heard anything from the foreign ministry and wanted to know that a plane had been prepared to take them out.<\/p>\n<p>He said it was not feasible for British citizens to get past the checkpoints in the country and drive hundreds of miles to reach the Sudan border.<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Andrew MacAskill; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky and Alex Richardson)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/uk-military-have-evacuated\/good-friday-agreement-25th-anniversary-6\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportTopNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXNPEJ3M041-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXNPEJ3M041-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LONDON (Reuters) -British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said on Sunday the country&#8217;s armed forces evacuated diplomatic staff and their family members from Sudan. Sunak paid tribute to what he called a &#8220;complex and rapid&#8221; evacuation after he said there had been a significant escalation in violence and threats to embassy staff. But British nationals living [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":20552,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1221],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-20551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-top-news","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportTopNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXNPEJ3M041-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20551"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20551\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20576,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20551\/revisions\/20576"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}