Amid 72-hour Sudan ceasefire, WHO warns of biological hazard

There were acute shortages of food, clean water, medicines and fuel and limited communications and electricity, with prices skyrocketing, said deputy UN spokesperson Farhan Haq.

He cited reports of looting of humanitarian supplies and said "intense fighting" in Khartoum as well as in Northern, Blue Nile, North Kordofan and Darfur states was hindering relief operations.

Facing attacks, aid organisations were among those withdrawing staff, and the World Food Programme suspended its food distribution mission, one of the largest in the world.

"The quick evacuation of Westerners means that the country is on the brink of collapse. But we expect a greater role from them in supporting stability by pressuring the two sides to stop the war," said Suleiman Awad, a 43-year-old academic in Omdurman.

Several nations, including Canada, France, Poland, Switzerland and the United States, have halted embassy operations until further notice.

Fighting calmed enough over the weekend for the United States and Britain to get embassy staff out, triggering a rush of evacuations of hundreds of foreign nationals by countries ranging from Gulf Arab states to Russia, Japan and South Korea.

Japan said all its citizens who wished to leave Sudan had been evacuated. Paris said it had arranged evacuations of 491 people, including 196 French citizens and others from 36 other nationalities. A French warship was heading for Port Sudan to pick up more evacuees.

Four German air force planes evacuated more than 400 people of various nationalities from Sudan as of Monday, while the Saudi foreign ministry said on Monday it evacuated 356 people, including 101 Saudis and people of 26 other nationalities.

Several countries sent military planes from Djibouti. Families with children crowded into Spanish and French military transport aircraft, while a group of nuns were among the evacuees on an Italian plane, photographs showed.

The U.N. secretary general urged the 15 members of the Security Council to use their clout to return Sudan to the path of democratic transition.

Islamist autocrat Omar al-Bashir was overthrown in a popular uprising in 2019, and the army and RSF jointly mounted a 2021 military coup. But two years later, they fell out during negotiations to integrate and form a civilian government.