The Brits trapped in Sudan's warzone
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 24 April 2023
⏱️ 39 minutes
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Summary
Stay indoors!
We continue to advise all British nationals in Sudan to stay indoors wherever possible. We recognise circumstances will vary in different locations. You should exercise your own judgement about your circumstances, including whether to relocate at your own risk.
This is the current advice from the Foreign Office - who have managed to evacuate UK diplomatic staff, but are struggling to help up to 3,000 UK citizens stuck in the warzone that is Sudan - many now fearing for their lives.
Should the government be telling people to sit tight? Or get out.
And as Dominic Raab exits stage left, his parting shot is at an 'activist' civil service. Was Whitehall really out to get him? We discuss.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:08.1 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:11.8 | The fighting in Khartoum in Sudan is now so bad. |
| 0:15.7 | We're hearing reports of people sleeping under their beds, sleeping in shifts so that one family member can look |
| 0:23.9 | out, and trying to work out whether there is greater danger in leaving your home or in staying |
| 0:30.7 | put. And increasingly there are questions about what the British government has done or hasn't |
| 0:37.0 | done to get British nationals out of Sudan. |
| 0:40.8 | This is Alicia Kearns, the Conservative MP and chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, |
| 0:47.5 | talking to the news agents of her assessment of the situation. |
| 0:51.6 | Nobody underestimates a complexity of an evacuation, but the reality is that the British |
| 0:58.4 | people have a contract with the British government. That contract relies on one core concept, |
| 1:03.9 | which is that the British government, the British state, will protect them in a time of need |
| 1:08.3 | and will come to their rescue. And that ultimately is the foremost job of |
| 1:11.9 | the foreign office. So I am very much hoping that by the time the podcast airs, we hear that there |
| 1:17.2 | is an evacuation taking place of British nationals. Because for failed to do so, would be to abandon |
| 1:22.7 | them. And yes, there was an explicit threat to our diplomatic staff. And that is why we saw all our allies evacuate their staff as quickly as possible. |
| 1:31.7 | But as a previous Foreign Office member of staff, it is ingrained within you that you are the last one out. |
| 1:37.7 | And therefore, I'm sure those staff will all be expecting and hoping the British government will evacuate. |
| 1:42.9 | Now, the reality is the US government |
| 1:44.4 | has decided they will not evacuate. If that is our position, we have a moral duty to tell |
| 1:50.9 | the British people in Sudan that we will not be evacuating them so that they can make the |
| 1:55.8 | decisions that are best for them. So a clear message from Melissa Kearns there. The moral duty is first to get them out of |
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