Some 4,000 British passport holders in Sudan – amid warnings UK govt ‘severely limited’ in ability to help them

There are understood to be around 4,000 British passport holders in Sudan after foreign secretary James Cleverly warned the UK government is "severely limited" in its ability to help British nationals until the conflict ends.

It comes after diplomats and staff in Sudan have been evacuated by governments around the world as rival generals battle for a ninth day with no sign of a truce that had been declared for a major Muslim holiday.

While world powers including the US and UK airlifted their diplomats from the capital of Khartoum, Sudanese citizens have desperately tried to flee the chaos, with many of them risking dangerous roads to cross the northern border in Egypt.

Fighting has raged in Omdurman, a city across the Nile River from Khartoum, according to residents, despite a hoped-for ceasefire to coincide with the three-day Muslim holiday of Eid al Fitr.

More than 420 people, including 246 civilians, have been killed while over 3,700 have been injured in fighting between the Sudanese armed forces and a powerful paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The RSF claimed the armed forces unleashed air strikes on the upscale area of Kafouri, north of Khartoum.

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