PORT SUDAN: The HMS Al Diriyah, a 102-metre-long Saudi warship, is typically used to escort oil tankers through the Red Sea and in training exercises with Western naval powers.
But this week the vessel carried out a different kind of mission: transporting shell-shocked civilians from conflict-hit Sudan to safety on Saudi soil.
It was part of a broader evacuation effort that has given Saudi Arabia a central role in Sudan’s crisis, putting the Gulf kingdom’s regional clout on display for a global audience.
As of Monday, Saudi Arabia had welcomed more than 5,400 civilian evacuees, the vast majority of them foreigners representing 102 countries on six continents.
“I’ve been terribly impressed with all of their work to help evacuate people, to put their navy at the disposal of people fleeing,” said Cameron Hudson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The fighting — which has killed hundreds and wounded thousands so far — partly resulted from “gentle hand-holding” of army chief Abdel Fattah al Burhan and paramilitary leader Mohamed Hamdan Daglo when the world should have insisted on real reform, said Kholood Khair, founder of the Khartoum-based think tank Confluence Advisory.
“This is a momentary reprieve for the international community to focus on evacuations as the main story, rather than how we got here,” Khair said.
State-run channels are filming new arrivals disembarking in the port city of Jeddah and interview diplomats stressing the Saudi navy’s speedy mobilisation.
Khair, of Confluence Advisory, last week found herself in Port Sudan along with thousands of others desperate for a way out.
She has credited the Saudis with being “the only ones on the surface who are taking any kind of responsibility by providing this safe route out, even if it is marred by politics”.
Defence ministry spokesman Colonel Turki al Maliki said military assets would continue to be allocated to evacuations “as long as the Saudi Embassy is receiving requests from the other embassies”.
Saudi officials are meanwhile positioning the kingdom as a mediator, keeping ties to both generals.
An envoy of Burhan’s met on Sunday with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan, and Saudi officials have requested an emergency meeting of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. — AFP
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