Some foreign nationals began evacuating from a Red Sea port in Sudan on Saturday, even as airstrikes again rocked the capital, Khartoum, after a week of fighting between rival commanders that has killed hundreds of civilians across the country.
Canadian citizens are reported to be among those who have escaped Sudan to Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Affairs Ministry said its Royal Navy forces carried out an evacuation operation, transporting 91 citizens and 66 people from “brotherly and friendly” countries — including Canadians — from the Port of Sudan, on the Red Sea coast, to Jeddah.
The statement, posted on social media, did not say how many Canadian passport holders may have been on board the flight. CBC News has reached out to Global Affairs Canada for confirmation.
The Canadian government is also preparing for the possibility of removing embassy staff from the country.
Citizens of Saudi Arabia and people from other countries are welcomed by Saudi Royal Navy officials as they arrive in the port city of Jeddah after being evacuated from Sudan on Saturday. (Saudi Press Agency/Handout/Reuters)
Department of National Defence (DND) spokesperson Caroline Elie said Global Affairs Canada asked the Canadian Armed Forces to “provide military expertise and advice” and to help develop support options for Canadian-based staff at the embassy in Khartoum.
“Specifically, this includes planning in the event the situation permits the evacuation of Canadian Embassy staff,” she said in an email to CBC News.
Elie said a Canadian Armed Forces strategic advisory team and military liaison officers are deploying to the region to connect with other partner nations considering diplomatic evacuation operations.
But she said DND could not release further details at this time and “won’t speculate about potential operations in order to protect the security of those in the region.”
In a Friday night statement, Canada’s foreign affairs and national defence ministers said they were “actively monitoring the situation in Sudan.”
“In response to recent developments, Canada has deployed members of Global Affairs Canada’s Standing Rapid Deployment Team to Djibouti to enhance our ability to support and to further assess the needs on the ground,” Mélanie Joly and Anita Anand said in the joint statement.
The Canadian Embassy in Khartoum has temporarily suspended in-person operations. Canadians in need of emergency assistance are encouraged to call Global Affairs Canada’s emergency response centre.
Foreign minister says evacuations from Sudan are ‘impossible’ right now
Foreign Minister Melanie Joly says her office is keeping a close eye on the situation on the ground but evacuations are not possible right now because the airport is closed and the streets are unsafe.
Trapped inside for days
There are nearly 1,600 Canadians who are registered as being in Sudan, according to Global Affairs Canada, though registration is voluntary and the number of Canadian citizens and permanent residents in the country may be higher.
Canadians remaining in Sudan have been advised to shelter in place and to stay away from windows and keep doors locked at all times, as well as to keep phones charged and ensure passports and travel documents are secure.
Saydah Mustafa, a Sudanese Canadian medical student studying in Khartoum, told CBC News that she and her sister have been trapped in their home for the past week. She said fighting broke out shortly after she returned home from an exam and she hasn’t been able to leave since.
“We’ve kind of just been living off of what my parents [who are in Saudi Arabia] bought us. Thankfully, a few days before that, my parents sent us a care package that included all kinds of basic packaged foods [and] canned foods that we’re living off of,” she said, adding they may have enough to last another week or two at most.
Canadian student trapped in Sudan still waiting for federal support amid bombings
Saydah Mustafa is a medical student trapped inside her family home in Sudan since the fighting broke out. She says connecting to Canadian officials directly about advice or evacuation efforts has been impossible.
Mustafa said the situation is traumatizing and that she and her sister have stayed sheltered in parts of the home away from windows, but it’s impossible to avoid the sounds of gunfire, fighter jets and airstrikes.
“The building shakes whenever a bomb goes off nearby,” she said.
Mustafa said she began reaching out for Canadian consular support within the first few days of the fighting, but officials have not provided any advice on leaving the country because services are limited and the airports are closed.
Sudanese army to assist foreign evacuations
Foreign countries have struggled to repatriate their citizens as the bloody onslaught of urban warfare has trapped large numbers in the Sudanese capital. Khartoum’s airport has been repeatedly targeted, and many residents have been unable to leave their homes or get out of the city to safer areas.
Battles between the Sudanese army and rival paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have raged in and around Khartoum, an throughout the country, since April 15.
Sudan’s army said on Saturday that it was helping to evacuate foreign nationals from the country, even as its forces battled paramilitary rivals in Khartoum, including with airstrikes.
A satellite image shows destroyed airplanes at Khartoum International Airport on April 17. ( Courtesy of Maxar Technologies/Handout/Reuters)
The statement citing army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan came after promises by RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, to open airports for evacuations.
Burhan “agreed to provide the necessary assistance to secure such evacuations for various countries,” the military said.
The RSF said it was ready to partially open all airports to allow evacuations. However, Khartoum’s international airport has been caught in fighting, and the status of other airports or RSF’s control over them is unclear.
The Current16:34Fears of a civil war spread in Sudan
Sudan’s capital Khartoum erupted in violence this weekend. We discuss spreading fears of a civil war with Dr. Alaaeldin Nogoud, a surgeon who lives and works in Khartoum; and Khalid Medani, the chair of African studies and an associate professor of political science at McGill.
Fighting continues despite holiday truce
The army and the paramilitary RSF had both issued statements saying they would uphold a three-day ceasefire from Friday for Islam’s Eid al-Fitr holiday.
But sounds of fighting continued overnight, although they appeared less intense on Saturday morning than on the previous day, a Reuters journalist in Khartoum said. Live broadcasts by regional news channels showed rising smoke and the thud of blasts.
International efforts to quell the violence have focused on the ceasefire, with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken calling on them to honour the truce.
Joly, Canada’s foreign affairs minister, said in a Twitter post on Saturday that she had been in contact with her Kenyan counterpart to discuss support for regional efforts to resolve the situation.
I spoke with my Kenyan counterpart, Cabinet Secretary <a href=”https://twitter.com/DrAlfredMutua?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>@DrAlfredMutua</a>, to discuss the crisis in Sudan. <br><br>Canada is ready to support regional efforts to resolve the conflict and we welcome Kenya’s leadership in working to facilitate mediation.
The violence was triggered by disagreement over an internationally backed plan to form a new civilian government four years after the fall of autocrat Omar al-Bashir and two years after the military coup.
Burhan and Hemedti had held the top two positions on a ruling council overseeing a political transition after the coup that was meant to include a move to civilian rule and the RSF’s merger into the army. Both sides accuse the other of thwarting the transition.
The World Health Organization reported on Friday that 413 people had been killed and 3,551 injured since fighting broke out. The death toll includes at least five aid workers in a country reliant on food aid.
Hospitals hit
The Sudanese doctors union said early on Saturday that more than two-thirds of hospitals in conflict areas were out of service, with 32 forcibly evacuated by soldiers or caught in crossfire.
Some of the remaining hospitals, which lack adequate water, staff and electricity, were providing only first aid. People posted urgent requests on social media for medical assistance, transport to hospital and prescription medication.
Doctors Without Borders appealed for safe passage to supply hospitals and allow medical staff to work freely.
Smoke fills the sky in Khartoum, near Doha International Hospital, on Friday. Gunfire continues across Sudan’s capital. (Maheen S./The Associated Press)
Thousands of Sudanese flee to Chad
The head of the United Nations World Food Program in neighbouring Chad said it expects to see more refugees fleeing across the border from Sudan to escape the fighting in Darfur, where some of the worst violence has been reported outside Khartoum.
About 10,000 to 20,000 Sudanese have already crossed the border into Chad a week after the fighting began in Khartoum and other areas of the country.
“The World Food Program is going to prepare to welcome at least 100,000. It is probable that there could be more, so we have to be ready,” Pierre Honnorat, the program’s director in Chad, told Reuters on Friday.
He added that most of those who arrived in recent days from villages along the border were women and children.
“We were surprised to see so many children crossing. It was heartbreaking to see the women and children under trees. Some of them have suffered some violence, their houses burnt, their villages destroyed and their neighbourhoods completely looted,” he said.
Honnorat said there is an immediate necessity to provide enough drinking water in the arid desert region.
People gather to get bread during clashes between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and Sudan’s army in Khartoum on Saturday. (Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters)
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
