Sudan

James Duddridge Excerpts

Monday 24th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

I cannot comment on rumours about the Royal Navy and Port Sudan. Obviously, the hon. Gentleman’s constituent and her family should make sure that they are registered with the Foreign Office. We will keep in touch and everyone should be receiving at least one communication per day. I am advised that today the internet has been only 2% available and so there are real issues with that, but we will do everything we can. He talks about a lull in the fighting yesterday. The Turks had a convoy with three muster points and when they were seeking to congregate their people there, two of those muster points were shot up. So the situation is extremely dangerous and it would not be possible to say that at any point yesterday, or on any of the days since this awful event took place, Khartoum was in any way safe.

[Sir James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)]

It is always a tricky decision whether to evacuate staff. I have always felt that the Foreign Office has been a little too keen to evacuate staff rather than protect British citizens, but the EU embassy was shot at and it is directly opposite the UK compound, which shows a clear and present danger to our embassy. My question follows on from the one from the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant). Will the Minister be more specific about numbers, including on the 2,000 figure? How many dual nationals and how many mono nationals are we talking about? Although we will treat the dual nationals equally, will the Sudanese Government treat them similarly? How many of those people actually want to stay? In previous situations, dual nationals have often been safer and have wanted to stay hunkered down with their families and second communities.

[Mr Mitchell]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments. I assure him, having spent quite a lot of time with the men and women who are manning the crisis centre at the Foreign Office, that it would be wrong to suggest that their concern was for evacuating staff and not the wider public. The absolute commitment from the Foreign Office is to do everything we can for all those caught in this way, although, as I have mentioned, we have a special duty in respect of our own staff. He asked me to be more specific about numbers. I think I have been quite specific, but let me say that the published figures are about 400 for mono nationals and about 4,000 for dual citizens. He will appreciate that if someone has a British passport, they would expect to be treated in the same way whichever group they belong to. As for how many people want to leave Sudan, as I said, the Foreign Office has received registered communications from 2,000.