British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was asked on Wednesday whether refugees arriving in the UK who have fled Sudan would be detained, given there is currently no legal route for them to enter the country.

Sunak was challenged during Prime Minister's Questions by the Westminster leader of opposition party the SNP, Stephen Flynn.

The prime minister responded by saying that his government has invested £200m in humanitarian support in Sudan, and that the country has a "proud record of compassionately supporting those in need of assistance".

A father-of-four living in London has said his children and ex-wife were forced to flee Sudan's capital Khartoum after their home care under fire.

Amir Hussein said the children, aged 15, 11, seven and four, along with their mother, are currently in Atbara around 350km north of Khartoum.

They fled from Khartoum to the area earlier this week after their house got caught in the crossfire of fighting.

Amir, 49, said:

The family, who all have British passports, fled Khartoum before the government confirmed it would be evacuating UK nationals from an airport near the capital.

It’s now “too dangerous” for them to return to Khartoum, Amir said, so instead they're trying to secure bus tickets to take them to Port Sudan where they plan on making their own way out of the country.

Wycliffe Muia
BBC News

Sudan's army and the police say they have launched an operation to bring back prisoners who have escaped during the fighting between rival military factions, including war crimes suspect Ahmed Haroun.

The interior ministry said in a statement that the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which is battling the army, broke into five prisons and released an unknown number of inmates.

The ministry said the raid on Kober Prison in the capital Khartoum led to the killing of two prison warders, and that the RSF released all inmates.

The jailbreaks took place between 21-24 April, according to the ministry.

A Sudanese army spokesman told Sky News Arabia this was a "major security threat".

The spokesman said the army was coordinating with the police to return inmates to prisons. He denied army involvement in the jailbreaks, saying the military "does not have any supervision over prisons".

The rival paramilitary group that is in a bitter power struggle with the Sudanese army has claimed to have seized an oil refinery 70km north of the Sudan's capital, Khartoum, according to the AFP news agency.

The AFP reports that the Rapid Support Forces made the claims in a video, in which it also said it had taken control of the associated Garri power plant.

On Tuesday, the army warned in a Facebook post of "heavy movement towards the refinery in order to take advantage of the truce by taking control of the refinery".

At the start of Prime Minister's Questions, both PM Rishi Sunak and the opposition leader Sir Keir Starmer paid tribute to the British evacuation effort in Sudan.

Sunak said the UK continues to work to "end the bloodshed" there and support a democratic government. He thanked all those carrying out the operation to get people out.

Starmer also commended the "brave British personnel" involved, adding the government "must do everything in its power" to urgently free Britons trapped there.

Claire Noble
BBC News

The daughter of a retired NHS doctor, now in a critical condition, says her father was ambushed and shot in the leg as he tried to get his 86-year-old mother to safety.

Aisha, not her real name, told us bullets hit his car from all directions as they tried to flee. She says she is now trying to get him back to the UK for urgent medical attention.

"If you saw the car and where the gunshots were made, it’s a miracle he’s still alive.

“My sister has been using a pillowcase as pressure on his wounds because they can’t access hospitals. His medical condition is critical. He’s at risk of sepsis."

Aisha says her father has been an NHS doctor for more than 30 years and that he and her sister are both British citizens. But the elderly grandmother who is with them is not, which has made the process to get an evacuation flight back to the UK difficult.

She says she contacted the Foreign Office, which told her they can only evacuate British passport holders and their immediate family members - that is, partners, under-18s and the parents of British children.

"My father is in an incredibly difficult position because he cannot leave his mother behind but also wants to ensure his own safety as well as my sister's.

"We plead with the British government to demonstrate flexibility and compassion in these extreme circumstances.”

Image source, EPA

Tens of thousands of people are fleeing Sudan amid a tenuous ceasefire that has bought a lull to the fighting that broke out earlier this month. Many are making extremely dangerous journeys to do so - here's how it's happening.

By air

Many foreign nationals have been repatriated to their home countries by air, with countries including Germany already having wrapped up their evacuations by Tuesday evening.

Among those still getting out are hundreds of UK nationals getting on Royal Air Force evacuation flights going back and forth between Cyprus and an air base near the Sudanese capital Khartoum.

The government has had to cope with a "larger cohort of British nationals in Sudan compared to many other countries", Home Secretary Suella Braverman said.

By sea

Countries including India, France, and Saudi Arabia have sent naval ships to the coastal city of Port Sudan, from where people are being evacuated across the Red Sea to the Saudi city of Jeddah

The Saudi foreign ministry said that a ship carrying 1,687 civilians from more than 50 countries arrived in Jeddah earlier today, the kingdom's largest evacuation effort so far.

For many, reaching the port has meant journeys of hundreds of miles by bus through arid desert. They've had to navigate army checkpoints and avoid fighters from the Rapid Support Forces, the paramilitary force on one side of this violent conflict.

By land

Huge numbers of Sudanese nationals - and foreign citizens too - have also been trying to reach safety in the neighbouring countries of Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia, and South Sudan via overland routes.

The UN has warned that a quarter of a million Sudanese could be on the move but others have chosen to remain in capital Khartoum despite reports of ongoing skirmishes amid the ceasefire.

Some we’ve spoken to say they can hear fighting near their homes but that they feel safer staying indoors because of the robbing, looting, and violence happening on the city’s streets. Others have said they are desperate to leave but can't afford the cost of tickets.

If you're just joining us, here's a quick recap of what's been happening so far today.

• Tens of thousands of Sudanese and foreign nationals are trying to get out of the country during a tenuous ceasefire between the country's army and a rival paramilitary group, the Rapid Support Forces
• Among them are Britons evacuated on three flights from an airfield near the capital Khartoum. All three flights have left, and one is on its way to the UK. Some 230-240 UK nationals boarded the flights
• Sudanese nationals have been continuing to try to reach neighbouring Chad, Egypt, Ethiopia and South Sudan
• Those who remain in the capital Khartoum have sheltered in homes but supplies are running out
• There's confusion over the whereabouts of former officials wanted for war crimes, after a number of them were said to have been freed from prisons during the chaos
• There had been speculation that ex-president Omar al-Bashir had been among those freed, but the Sudanese army says he has moved to a military hospital
• Evacuations are continuing, with nearly 2,000 people from 50 countries crossing the Red Sea to the port of Jeddah on a ship organised by Saudi Arabia

Image source, German Ministry of Defence

Germany's evacuation mission from Sudan has ended, the defence ministry said on Twitter, external.

The post said that the last flight, an A400M jet with 78 people on board, arrived in Germany.

The total number of people evacuated from Sudan reached 700 with this last flight, around 200 of whom are German citizens.

BBC Monitoring

Ukraine is another country part of the evacuation effort. It's got 91 of its citizens out of the country, according to Foreign Ministry spokesman Oleh Nikolenko.

He wrote on Facebook that 64 of those want to go back to Ukraine and are expected to arrive in Poland first.

Five of the evacuees were taken to Egypt, and another three were evacuated with the help of the German government.

Nick Beake
Reporting from Cyprus

Before she left on the first evacuation flight, Shereen Soliman - a British fashion designer from London - told me of her relief at escaping the conflict in Sudan.

“It was something else. I can’t even describe. It was bad, it was very bad, I even don’t want to remember it.”

I met her at the departure gate with her 10-year-old son Karim and 8-year-old daughter Diyalam.

Shereen says other family members did not have the right to come to the UK with her.

“I had to leave my parents, my siblings, the whole family there. So I’m very worried about them. I really feel sorry for Sudan because it’s my home, my country. I wanted my kids to feel safe there.”

I asked her how she felt the British authorities had performed in bringing her family to safety, compared with the French and the Germans, for example.

“They were slower than the others, but still they saved us. That’s what matters, right?

Shereen then asked her son to explain to me what he saw.

Karim said “We heard lots of gunshots while we were in the house. We also heard explosions. I saw men with guns but they were friendly because they were on our team.”

He said he was looking forward to being back in London because it was safe there.

Catherine Byaruhanga
BBC News, Djibouti

The military general who led France's operations to rescue its nationals from Sudan has told the BBC that France is ready to help other countries trying to extract citizens caught up in the conflict zone.

French forces carried out ground missions in Khartoum to rescue its citizens, and other Europeans, bringing them to an airstrip outside the capital. They were then flown to Djibouti in the Horn of Africa.

Major General Laurent Boïté said France believes all its nationals have been evacuated from Sudan.

The UK and US are advising their citizens to make their way to safer locations in order to be repatriated from Sudan. Both countries have come under criticism for not doing enough to extract their nationals from Sudan.

Eighty-two Ghanaians trapped in Sudan have been evacuated to safety, the Ghanaian foreign affairs ministry has said.

The ministry said 77 of them had been moved to Gedaref in the east of the country, from where they will be transported to the Ethiopian border town of Metema on Wednesday.

They will be received by Ghanaian officials and processed for repatriation to Ghana.

Separately, three Ghanaian footballers and two other people working for an Australian mining company are being sent to the Egyptian border post of Wadi Halfa through northern Sudan.

The exact number of Ghanaians stranded in Sudan is unknown, but authorities say they are working with the honorary consul in Khartoum to evacuate all its nationals.

Image source, .

James Copnall
BBC World Service

As we’ve reported Ahmed Haroun has escaped from prison.

He played a key part in the Sudanese government’s brutal response to two long-running and still unresolved civil wars, in Darfur and South Kordofan.

He was indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his alleged role in the atrocities in Darfur, which has been described as the first genocide of the 21st century.

Haroun was a member of former President Omar al Bashir’s inner circle for much of his 30 years in power - and was locked up once Bashir was overthrown in 2019.

Now Haroun says he and other Bashir loyalists are out of Kober prison.

Plenty of Sudanese people will believe this is just the latest example of Gen Burhan trying to restore Bashir’s Islamist lieutenants to the forefront of Sudanese politics.

Image source, Getty Images

Occasional sounds of gunfire are still reported in Sudan as the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces accuse each other of violating the three-day ceasefire.

An Al-Arabiya TV correspondent has observed sporadic clashes between the army and RSF in some parts of the capital, Khartoum, this morning.

A section of local media say RSF vehicles have been seen heading to Khartoum's twin city of Omdurman - a key route for those being evacuated.

The RSF has just released a statement saying "a new revolution has now begun", vowing to defend the country "to the last drop of blood". It claims the army is attacking its bases, in a "clear violation of the truce".

For its part, the army, on Facebook, has warned the RSF against "exploiting the truce” by deploying more troops to Khartoum.

Cecilia Macaulay
BBC News

Nigerians seem to be the only foreign students left stranded in Sudan, one has told the BBC in a distressed call.

“It’s only the Nigerian students left here in Sudan, everybody has left, only us," the university student, who does not want to be named, said.

Other African nations like South Africa, Kenya, Mali, Ivory Coast and Uganda are among countries that have announced the evacuation of some of their nationals.

“It’s just so traumatising," she continued, adding with a broken voice that she hoped Nigeria would come for her and her classmates' rescue soon.

She said Nigeria kept "delaying" the sending of buses to evacuate them. She was expecting them to come on Tuesday, but they never arrived. She was then told by the embassy that the buses would pick them up at 06:00 local time today, but they hadn't as of 10:00.

In addition, the embassy said only five buses would arrive, but that was not enough to transport all the students, she said.

The people in her university hostel were also low on food supplies, she said, and were just trying to survive: "We are starving here."

We've been hearing about the complex operations several different countries are using to help foreign nationals flee war-torn Sudan.

Tens of thousands of Sudanese have also crossed into neighbouring countries since the fighting broke out on 15 April, travelling huge distances and making very dangerous journeys to get out.

There's various routes by boat and air - here's a map showing the ways people can escape.

Former Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir was moved from prison to a military hospital before the outbreak of fighting earlier this month, according to the Sudanese army.

Bashir came to power in a military coup in 1989 and ruled Sudan until 2019, when he was toppled by another coup after large-scale protests.

Following his ousting, he was convicted of corruption and sentenced to two years in prison.

The army said in a statement, external that Bashir and a number of others had been moved from the Kober prison, near capital Khartoum, to a military hospital under police custody on the recommendation of medical staff.

Questions were raised about Bashir's whereabouts after a former minister in his government, Ali Haroun, announced on Tuesday that the former president had left the prison with other former officials.

Some reports had suggested that Bashir may have been released during an attack on the prison.

Both Bashir and Haroun are wanted by the International Criminal Court over alleged atrocities in the western Sudanese region of Darfur.

Read the BBC's profile of Bashir here.

Nick Beake
Europe correspondent in Cyprus

At gate 18 of Larnaca airport - like most departures lounges the world over - excited children ran up and down the corridor. But unlike at other airports, these young Britons had just escaped war after a terrifying time in Sudan.

Their parents dragged along the floor whatever luggage they had been able to take with them from their homes in the capital Khartoum before running the gauntlet through the streets to the designated British pick-up point for the flights out.

The elderly were put in wheelchairs before being taken out to the tarmac.

I saw families embrace British government staff, wearing blue polo shirts with the Union flag on the sleeve, before handing over their travel documents to Cypriot officials.

Moments later, the first departure fight left.

Onboard, Britons now heading for the safety of the UK.

But many have had to leave behind relatives who do not have British passports or visas.

The first plane heading to the UK from Cyprus has left. Around 250 people are on board.