Sudan: Coronavirus

(asked on 22nd June 2020) - View Source

Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what estimate his Department has made of the number of UK nationals stranded in Sudan as a result of the Sudanese Government closing commercial airports in response to the covid-19 pandemic.


Answered by
James Duddridge Portrait
James Duddridge
This question was answered on 30th June 2020

The UK Government has helped over 200 British travellers return to the UK from Sudan on a HMG special chartered flight on 21 May. When commercial flights were available, the embassy highlighted these to British traveller through its Travel Advice and social media channels. They also worked with international partners to enable British travellers to return on other countries' charter flights. There are currently no further HMG special charter flights planned but we welcome the decision by Emirates to offer a commercial flight from Khartoum to Dubai on 26 June which anyone wishing to depart Sudan could consider.

We believe that the majority of those British travellers in Sudan who are able and wished to leave have taken one of these available means of return. Some appear to have decided not to return at this point. It is difficult to be precise on the numbers of British travellers who still wish to return home because there have been instances of multiple registrations by the same individual, people not reporting their return to the UK via other means, and long term residents registering for flights even though they were not eligible. Through our embassy in Khartoum, officials are in regular contact with those British travellers who have expressed a desire to return to the UK. We encourage British travellers in Sudan wishing to return to the UK to visit our Travel Advice page: https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/sudan which is regularly updated to ensure that those wishing to return are aware of further developments.

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