Sudan's Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary group says it has moved Egyptian soldiers stuck at military airbase in north of the country to the capital, Khartoum.

In a tweet, external, RSF said the soldiers were "all safe" and would be handed over to Egyptian authorities when the "appropriate opportunity" arose.

Earlier this week, Egypt's president said the troops were in Sudan for joint exercises and not to support any of the warring parties.

On Saturday, the RSF, which is battling the army, had posted a video of what it said were Egyptian soldiers "turning themselves in" at the Merowe military air base, which is about 330km (210 miles) north of Khartoum.

It is not clear how many Egyptian soldiers have been taken to Khartoum.

Image source, AFP

Germany has halted a mission to evacuate around 150 citizens from Sudan because of the fighting in the capital, Khartoum, Der Spiegel news magazine reports, external.

It said the Luftwaffe air force had dispatched three planes for the mission early on Wednesday. The planes had first landed in Greece for refuelling.

The aircraft were later expected to fly to Khartoum to evacuate dozens of German diplomats, federal police officers and aid workers.

However, the German military reportedly aborted the mission because of renewed clashes and airstrikes in Khartoum.

Japan and Kenya had also announced they would evacuate their citizens, but the fighting in Sudan has delayed those plans.

Image source, Getty Images

A Russian woman trapped in an Orthodox Greek church in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, with about 15 other people says their situation is desperate as they have no electricity, water or food.

She told the BBC she had been attending an Easter service on Saturday with her seven-year-old daughter when the fighting broke out between rival military factions.

Two Greek people who tried to leave the church on Saturday were wounded in the courtyard in crossfire.

“They were taken to the nearby hospital. However, now they are going to bring them back because the hospitals are closing. No medicines. But they need an operation,” she said in a WhatsApp message.

Besides her daughter, two other children are among those trapped in the church for the last five days - and they can hear the shots from heavy artillery.

According to reports in the Greek media, Ethiopians and Sudanese are also among the group unable to leave the church.

There was enough food at the church for a couple of days.

"But by now it’s gone, as well as fuel for generator - urban electricity is cut off from the very beginning of the fighting," her message said.

“You can send this everywhere, as a message to the whole world from our church: No electricity, water, food."

David Bamford
BBC World Service News

Image source, Getty Images

Large numbers of residents are fleeing the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, as fighting continues for a fifth day in the city centre.

Civilians trapped in their homes have become increasingly desperate, as the morning brought a new wave of explosions.

Fighters of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) were seen driving around the streets in armoured vehicles and pick-up trucks, as army jets overhead fired missiles at RSF targets.

Eyewitnesses said the streets around the defence ministry and airport were littered with bodies.

Foreign embassies and the UN are planning operations to evacuate their own staff.

The UN says about 200 people are confirmed dead.

Aid agency compounds have been overrun by fighters.

The leaders of Kenya, Djibouti and South Sudan have put on hold their attempt to get into Sudan to try to mediate between the rival generals whose forces are battling for control.

The founder of a Ugandan children’s group that has caused a sensation around the world for their dancing has spoken to the BBC about their stellar performance on the show Britain’s Got Talent.

Ghetto Kids received a standing ovation - and made history by becoming the first act to ever receive what is called the "Golden Buzzer" during their performance over the weekend.

Usually, it is only given at the end of show, but the judges could not contain themselves.

“What we did is just African comic dance... I think that’s what the judges loved. The energy and the comic way, our style - that’s what they loved and then the expression, the happiness is natural,” Daouda Kavuma told the BBC Newsday programme.

The footage of the group of young orphans dancing as golden confetti rained down on them made headlines around the world.

Mr Kavuma told the BBC that he started the group as way to help orphans and street children - giving them a home, food, some schooling and fun.

He said he himself had lived on the streets when he was orphaned as a child.

Setting up Ghetto Kids was a way of giving back to the society after he was helped by someone as street orphan.

“I got someone who helped me. He didn’t know me but helped me because of soccer," he said.

"Then there I promised one day I would help at least one child from the street."

He says the children love performing - and their performances have helped change the negative perceptions about street children in Uganda.

On Sunday, a Ugandan ministry congratulated the group and tweeted a video of their performance:

Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, has told the BBC the humanitarian situation in Sudan is dire and that helping people was become impossible.

Before the fighting began between rival military factions he said that 15.8 million people were in need of humanitarian relief, but since the conflict started "virtually all humanitarian work has been paralysed".

Eight Nigerian schoolgirls kidnapped by gunmen in northern Kaduna state two weeks ago have escaped from their captors.

The students were seized by an armed gang on their way home from a government secondary school in Awon in the area of Kachia.

Kaduna state security commissioner Samuel Aruwan says the students escaped through a thick forest near the border with Niger state.

The students walked for days before being found by some villagers, he said.

They have been taken to a military facility in Kaduna to receive medical attention, local media reports.

Gangs who operate mostly in remote parts of north-west Nigeria often kidnap students and demand hefty ransom payments for their freedom.

Image source, Getty Images

The Last Queen is considered as Algeria's first costume drama. The movie tells the story of Queen Zaphira in Algeria in the 16th Century.

BBC Monitoring
The world through its media

The head of the Russia's mercenary Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has said that the private military company has not had a presence in Sudan for more than two years.

"I can tell you with absolute certainty, with absolute accuracy, and you can enter my words in any protocols for any institution in the highest levels: as of today, there is not a single private military company (PMC) Wagner fighter, I stress - not a single one - in Sudan. And it has been this way for over two years," Mr Prigozhin said in a post on the Kepka Prigozhina , external(Prigozhin's Hat) Telegram channel.

He was replying to a journalist for the French-language magazine Jeune Afrique, who asked whether Wagner Group was supporting the Sudanese paramilitary group the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in the ongoing clashes with the military.

Will Leonardo
BBC World Service News

Image source, AFP

A woman from Uganda who said she had been persecuted for being gay has gained refugee status in Japan after a court overruled a government deportation order.

She had arrived in Japan in 2020 saying Ugandan police had assaulted her because of her sexuality.

But her application was rejected by the Japanese government which approved barely 200 asylum requests last year.

Tokyo - which has been criticised for taking in far fewer refugees than other industrialised nations - has been trying to make its asylum process more transparent.

The death of a Sri Lankan women at an immigration facility in 2021 led to more criticism.

BBC Monitoring
The world through its media

A Sudanese doctors' union has said that 39 out of 59 hospitals in the capital, Khartoum, and nearby states are "out of service", highlighting the worsening humanitarian situation in the country.

The Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors (CCSD) said in a statement on Facebook, external on Wednesday morning that only 20 hospitals were fully or partially operational.

"Among the hospitals that have stopped working, there are nine hospitals that were bombed, and 16 hospitals that were subjected to forced evacuation," the CCSD said.

Fighting is continuing in Khartoum and other parts of Sudan as the army and paramilitary force trade blame for violating a 24-hour humanitarian truce that was due to take effect Tuesday evening.

Japan is planning to send a military aircraft to evacuate its citizens from Sudan amid the deadly fighting.

Japanese government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno said that there were 60 Japanese nationals stuck in Sudan.

The government would do “its utmost to ensure the safety of Japanese residents in Sudan, including the safety and evacuation of Japanese nationals, in close cooperation with the G7 and other major countries", he said.

About 200 people have been killed in the ongoing violence between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group.

A school teacher is Sudan’s capital Khartoum has told the BBC that one of his pupils was shot in the head by a stray bullet amid continued fighting in the country.

“One of the children has been… shot by a stray bullet in the head… a lot of people have lost their lives like that,” the teacher, identified as Mo, told the BBC's Newsday programme on Wednesday.

He said that residents were getting used to the “scary” situation.

He said that heavy sounds of artillery could be heard on Wednesday morning, adding "no-one is listening or respecting the ceasefire".

The interview was briefly disrupted by sounds of gunfire as the teacher requested to move to a safer place.

Mo said food supplies were getting less and less every day as shops and supermarkets remain closed. "Electricity is stable but any moment it can go off," he said.

It came as the Sudanese army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) traded blame for violating a 24-hour humanitarian truce that was declared on Tuesday.

Nearly 200 people have been killed in the fighting which began on Saturday.

Image source, Getty Images

A court in Uganda's southern city of Jinja has denied bail to six men accused of engaging in gay sex that was allegedly captured on video.

The prosecution said the suspects were part of a network that is grooming young boys into acts of sodomy and recruiting male adults into gay relationships, the Daily Monitor reported.

The men aged between 20 and 26 were charged with indecency.

The court on Tuesday denied them bail on grounds that they would not be safe in the community.

“It is our mandate as the court to protect the accused persons. Releasing them to a biased society cannot guarantee their safety, so prison is their safe place,’’ a judge ruled.

Their case will be heard on 10 May.

Homosexual acts are already illegal in Uganda but the parliament has proposed a bill that introduces tougher punishment, including the death penalty.

Danny Aeberhard
Europe analyst, BBC World Service

Prosecutors in Switzerland have charged a former Gambian interior minister with crimes against humanity and other offences.

They accuse Ousman Sonko of involvement in and failure to prevent systematic attacks on opponents of the former president, Yahya Jammeh.

Mr Sonko held several senior posts in the authoritarian administration of Mr Jammeh - who ruled The Gambia for more than 20 years after seizing power in a military coup in the mid 1990s.

Prosecutors accuse Mr Sonko of supporting and participating in repression, up to 2016.

That year he left The Gambia to seek asylum in Europe, shortly before President Jammeh himself was ousted in an election.

The repression, prosecutors say, included systematic use of torture, rape and extra- judicial executions.

Mr Sonko has been held in detention in Switzerland for over six years.

He denies ever committing any offences and rejects allegations that crimes against humanity took place in The Gambia at the time.

Speaking to the BBC, his lawyer also accused the Swiss authorities of procedural violations during their lengthy investigation.

Emmanuel Igunza
BBC News, Nairobi

Image source, Getty Images

Regional leaders say they are heading to Sudan on Wednesday to try and broker a ceasefire, amid continuing clashes between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Heavy gunfire and explosions could still be heard in the capital Khartoum, despite a 24-hour humanitarian ceasefire that was to take effect late on Tuesday.

"We are getting used to the scary situation," a local teacher in Khartoum told BBC's Newsday programme on Wednesday, saying he could still hear sounds of heavy gunfire.

The ceasefire did not materialise - with residents in the capital reporting heavy gunfire and explosions for the fifth day running.

The African Union (AU) is hoping a pause in the clashes on Wednesday will allow a delegation from Djibouti, Kenya and South Sudan to arrive for talks with Sudan’s de-facto leader General Abdel Fattah al Burhan and his rival Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo who commands the RSF.

So far international mediation efforts have failed and there are growing concerns the country could slide into a civil war.

Nearly 200 people have been killed and hundreds of others injured with the main doctor’s union warning that the number of dead could rise even further.

Residents in and around Khartoum have reported anti-aircraft fire, and air strikes that shook buildings. In western Sudan, too, the UN said fighting was raging.

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Heavy gunfire and the roar of warplanes shatter plans for a ceasefire in the capital Khartoum.

Football administrators in Kenya say new laws and punishments needed to protect 'authenticity' of game.

That's all from the BBC Africa Live team until Wednesday morning.

In the meantime we leave you with an automated news feed, plus you can get the latest news from Sudan on the BBC News website or listen to the Africa Today podcast.

A reminder of Tuesday's wise words:

And lastly, here is a photo taken in Sudan of people leaving the capital in search of safety:

Image source, AFP