Red Cross brings 280 orphans from Khartoum to Safety

The Red Cross has brought 280 children and 70 staff from a Khartoum orphanage to safety in order to avoid an armed conflict in the Sudanese capital.

The aid organisation on Thursday said it had taken children from one month to 15 years-old to a location 200 kilometres north.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it had received guarantees from both warring sides that the convoy would not be attacked.

“Knowing these children are safe is an enormous relief,” Jean-Christophe Sandoz, the head of the ICRC delegation in Sudan, said in a statement.

“They spent incredibly difficult moments in an area where the conflict has been raging for the past six weeks without access to proper healthcare, an especially hard situation for children with special needs.”

Some of the children have psychiatric problems, the Red Cross added.

The army, backed by the president, and a paramilitary group controlled by the vice president have been fighting each other for power in Sudan since the middle of April.

The latest ceasefire lapsed last weekend.

(dpa/NAN)