Britain evacuated around 900 of its nationals from Sudan via Cyprus until early Thursday afternoon, urging them to take advantage of the deadline to leave the ceasefire.

Hundreds of people have been killed in nearly two weeks of fighting between the army and Rapid Support Forces in the capital, Khartoum.

Air travel of British nationals began on Tuesday.

Around 900 people arrived at Larnaca airport in Cyprus early in the morning on a British Royal Air Force flight, airport sources said. More than half of them have returned to Britain.

Two more flights are expected to depart from Sudan on Thursday.

Razan Wehbe (aged 44) ​​traveled with his twin daughters (aged seven). She said she had to leave behind her husband, Kazan, who does not hold a British passport, and other members of her family.

“I left them there, I’m the only one with a British passport,” he told Reuters as he waited to board a plane chartered by the British government to an airport in London.

Another person, Hamid, left his family. “It’s very difficult to get water and electricity, you can’t go anywhere, the situation is very bad and dangerous. I’ve never seen a problem like this before.”

“Sudan has been in a state of war for a long time, but it is different,” he said.

In Larnaca, evacuees from Sudan crossed paths with the first holiday tourists of the season.

Many had to leave with only their clothes. There a man named Tariq (age 52) gathered his belongings in a small green bag and started tearing.

Staying in Oxford, Tariq traveled to Khartoum to visit his father, who was in intensive care after suffering a heart attack.

“What’s going on there is terrible. The people there are like ghosts, an outer shell of their former selves. I don’t think I’ll ever leave,” she said.