Palestinian students coming from Khartoum, Sudan arrive in Gaza after Egyptian authorities open the Rafah crossing exceptionally for the evacuees.
Palestinian students fleeing conflict in Sudan reached the Rafah border crossing between Egypt and Palestine on Friday.
Gaza’s Crossing and Border Authority stated, “172 students arrived to their homeland through the Rafah border crossing, as the first set of students coming from Sudan.”
Relatives greeted the students who arrived at the blockaded Gaza Strip and one of the students, Nasser Qishta, described the situation in Khartoum as “really difficult” adding that the conflict has affected everyone in the capital.
The student detailed the evacuation process saying, “The Palestinian embassy in Sudan contacted us, gathered up the students, and transferred us to Gaza.”
The student was also hopeful of returning to Sudan to complete his studies once the “conditions improve.”
A Palestinian medical student, Wael al-Masri, said that the conflict in Sudan is similar to a “civil war”. He then extended his gratitude to the parties involved in evacuating the students, who had the Rafah crossing exceptionally opened for them by Egyptian authorities.
Gaza suffers from the burdens of a blockade imposed on residents by occupation forces since 2007.
Countries, including Germany, Italy, Sweden, Spain, Canada, Jordan, Kuwait, India, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Turkey, as well as the United Nations, have carried out evacuations, as the conflict in Sudan has put civilians in the line of fire claiming the lives of 512 people so far.
It is worth noting that Sudan’s Khartoum International Airport remains closed as of April 24, while the Sudanese airspace is closed to commercial traffic through at least April 30.
This has made evacuation efforts extremely difficult as governments have reportedly evacuated their staff and nationals based in Khartoum by land to an operational airport outside the capital or through Port Sudan, in which vessels carry evacuees to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.
The US has still not put out a concise plan to evacuate its 16,000 nationals currently stranded in conflict-ridden Sudan, while reports reveal that pressure is mounting on the Biden administration to avoid a catastrophe similar to that of Afghanistan in 2021.
Source: Almayadeen
