While foreign powers rescue citizens, the Sudanese are left on their own.

Foreign powers have rescued embassy staff and nationals caught in Sudan’s deadly fighting, even as many Sudanese are stuck in deteriorating conditions. At least 50 people were injured and an unknown number killed in shelling that rocked the capital Khartoum on Monday. US special forces helped bring almost 100 people – mostly US embassy staff – to safety over the weekend. Many other nations are scrambling to do the same, with more than 1,000 European Union nationals evacuated so far. The two sides at the center of more than a week of fighting – Sudan’s army and a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – blamed each other after a French evacuation convoy came under fire trying to leave Sudan, with one French national injured and one staff member of the Egyptian embassy in Sudan shot and injured during an evacuation operation.

Paris said later that it had closed the French embassy in Sudan until further notice. The Sudanese military leader, Gen. Abdul Fattah al-Burhan, and commander of the RSF, Lt. Gen. Mohamed Hamdan, seized control of the country in a military coup in 2021 and were due to hand over power to a civilian government. More than 420 people have been killed and 3,700 injured in the fighting, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). The humanitarian situation on the ground is deteriorating without access to medical services and with many left stranded without food or water. A series of ceasefires, including the latest called for the Muslim holiday Eid al-Fitr, have been broken. Residents in parts of Khartoum told CNN early on Sunday morning that there were no signs that the cessation of hostilities was being adhered to, as they awoke to aerial attacks, heavy artillery, explosions and gunfire.