Foreign nations scramble to evacuate citizens as Sudan battles rage

Foreign countries on Sunday rushed to evacuate their nationals from battle-torn Sudan where deadly fighting raged into a second week between forces loyal to two rival generals.

As gunfire again echoed through Khartoum and fighter jets roared above, foreigners also fled the capital in a long United Nations convoy, while millions of frightened residents hunkered down inside their homes, many running low on water and food.

Across the city of five million, army and militia troops have fought ferocious street battles since April 15, leaving behind charred tanks, gutted buildings and shops that have been looted and torched.

More than 420 people have been killed and thousands wounded, according to UN figures, in fighting that has sparked fears of wider turmoil and a humanitarian disaster in one of the world's poorest nations.

US special forces launched a rescue mission early on Sunday for around 100 embassy staff and their relatives, swooping in with Chinook helicopters to fly them to a military base in Djibouti.

US President Joe Biden condemned the violence, saying it is "unconscionable and it must stop".

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said UK forces had also "completed a complex and rapid evacuation of British diplomats and their families from Sudan, amid a significant escalation in violence and threats to embassy staff".

Germany and France meanwhile announced on Sunday that they had begun evacuating their nationals and those from other countries, with a French plane carrying around 100 people of multiple nationalities out.

Long convoys of UN vehicles and buses were seen leaving Khartoum heading east to Port Sudan on the Red Sea, 850 kilometres away by road.

Taking advantage of a recent brief lull in fighting, residents of the battle-striken capital rushed to organise buses out — mainly north to Egypt — sharing bus drivers' numbers, safe routes to the border, and advice on visa restrictions on social media.

The fighting broke out on April 15 between forces loyal to army chief Abdel Fattah Al Burhan and his deputy turned rival Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Multiple truces have been agreed in recent days and ignored.

Khartoum's airport, where the blackened hulls of destroyed aircraft lie on runways, is under the control of the RSF.

At least one jailbreak has taken place in the capital, according to lawyers.

Reports of prisoners also being freed from two other prisons — including the Kober jail where Bashir has been held — could not be independently verified.

In Khartoum, the conflict has left terrified civilians sheltering inside their homes, with power largely off amid sweltering heat and the internet out for most.

"We were living in darkness... first we didn't have water and then we didn't have power," Khartoum resident Awad Ahmad Sherif said.

"International actors will have less impact once they're out of country," he said, adding in a message to foreign nations: "Do all you can to leave safely, but don't leave the Sudanese people behind unprotected."