Kenya Forms Inter-Agency Taskforce for Sudan Evacuation

The Kenyan government has established a special inter-agency facilitation and emergency committee on Sudan (SIFECSC) to oversee the evacuation of international staff in the battle-torn northeast African nation.

The move comes following actions by the United Nations Office at Nairobi (UNON) and all international and regional organizations based in Nairobi that are keen on evacuating their staff.

The main role of the committee is to bring together various stakeholders in order to manage the evacuation of international staff in Sudan in a coordinated manner, according to a statement from the Ministry of Foreign and Diaspora Affairs. The Ministry has also set up a command center at 316 Upper Hill Chambers, 15th-floor room 1531 for smooth coordination.

The statement, however, did not mention the steps the government is taking to evacuate the close to 3,000 Kenyans who are stranded in Sudan. Since the fighting erupted on April 15, 2023, it has killed over 400 people and wounded 3,500 others countrywide, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

KENYA OFFERS TO MEDIATE

President William Ruto has since announced that Kenya is ready “to host a process of mediation” between the warring parties in Sudan. The President stated that this will be in line with “keeping with the African Union’s (AU) commitment to silence the guns of war”. “We make this offer in the spirit of brotherhood, peace, and solidarity as an acceptable neutral venue and also as an engaged stakeholder well-seized with the challenges facing our region,” he said.

The commander of the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, and Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan are at the center of the vicious power struggle. Since the outbreak of the violent power struggle last weekend, several attempts at implementing ceasefires have failed.