Royal Navy frigate HMS Lancaster, alongside sailors and Royal Marines, has assisted hundreds of civilians in fleeing war-torn Sudan.

The frigate arrived in Port Sudan last week as part of the UK’s efforts to help British citizens and those from partner nations escape the ongoing civil war.

The Royal Marines of 3 Commando, stationed onboard the frigate, assisted with the airlift of civilians from around the capital. Meanwhile, people were evacuated by ship across the Red Sea to Saudi Arabia, from where onward travel arrangements were made.

The Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office and UK Border Force personnel, supported by the UK Armed Forces, processed and supported British nationals during the evacuation.

Assistance from the Royal Marines

To ensure the safety of hundreds of people arriving in Port Sudan by road, members of 3 Parachute Regiment and 42 Commando Royal Marines disembarked from HMS Lancaster. Their presence provided critical support during the journey.

A safe haven

Among the evacuees was Mohammed Kadouk, a Cardiff-born student at Aberdeen University. Mohammed, along with his wife and three-week-old daughter, made the arduous 750km journey to Port Sudan. Speaking about the situation in Khartoum, Mohammed said, “Once I got here [Coral Hotel reception centre] it has been really good. My priority is my family, I need to get them somewhere safe, get them settled and then get back to work.”

As the situation in Sudan continues to be volatile, the efforts of Royal Navy frigate HMS Lancaster and its crew have been instrumental in assisting hundreds of civilians to escape the conflict and find safe haven.

Lisa West
Lisa has a degree in Media & Communication from Glasgow Caledonian University and works with industry news, sifting through press releases in addition to moderating website comments.

54 COMMENTS

  1. Excellent work HMS Lancaster. I think sadly Sudan is going to turn into a failed state like Mali and Eritrea with Russian mercenaries PMC Wagner running all the natural resources so oil fields, diamond mines etc and profiteering immensely from their “possessions”.
    Putin’s FSB have been involved in the destabilisation of Sudan and alongside Wagner are working to a clear plan of developing multiple African client states embroiled in civil wars that they have fermented.

    • China too has long been involved in parts of Africa but exercising influence and ‘buying friends’ rather than destabiling regimes.

    • Yes, likely Russian meddling, trying to get more of a foot hold along this key Suez transit route for world shipping. Link in with its other like minded regimes in Africa and China down the way in Djibouti, Iran over the way and Syria in the North and friendly with Turkey. China buddying up to Saudi Arabia and UAE. Funny (not) how these two rececently held exercises with South Africa, another key trade route around the Cape Horn and China more recently with Singapore. Bet with the later they’ll want a squizz at their weaponry and F-35Bs when they arrive. I didn’t realise that Singapore is a non-aligned neutral state. Big jostling along key fuel and trade routes going on. All potential energy, fuel, food supply, financial communications war scenarios.

      • Hopefully the F35Bs that Singapore are due to get can be used as a cudgel to get them to see sense.

        No more exercises with the PLA or else they should have their order completely revoked with no refunds.

  2. He is probably from Sudan ethnically and was likely visiting family/ friends there when the civil war broke out. Just a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  3. Hi folks hope all is well.
    Excellent work and well done to our magnificent military.
    It’s such a shame our own main stream media don’t report this with enthusiasm instead of being disloyal to the nation that keeps them safe, secure and sound. You’d think MSM is on the side of Putin the way they ridicule our military.
    Cheers
    George

    • Had to look up MSM – Mainstream media?

      Good point George. Our armed forces have done all that they were tasked by politicians to do – and more…and done this dangerous work faultlessly.

      [I bet many of those rescued ignored FCDO advice not to travel there].

    • Sky news interviewing British/Sudanese nationals that had been rescued. They asked them all about the slow response by the British compared to Germany etc, and every single one dismissed it, with one lady stating, well we are now safe and that’s the main thing isn’t it? For her yes, but clearly not for Sky News.

  4. Interesting that their is a big stink in the USA about their evacuation as they had no amphibious vessels available and could only follow their expat via drone as they made their way to the port,

    China had no planes to send.

    Maybe the UK ain’t so bad after all.

    • We do at least have a capability that works. More would always be nice.

      In that environment a T23 with its 4.5″ gun and Sea Ceptor is more than enough for the level of threat. NSM would be the icing on the cake but hard to see how its use would be anything other than a threat. Not sure that ROI would allow it to be used unless the T23 or other sovereign vessels were being fired on.

      So I do think that a Point / Bay / T23 is enough.

      The Beirut evacuation….a Country racing across the Med on one of its final missions with people being flown off board and on board as it went…..no working missile systems…..no Sea Slug on board – not that it would ever hit anything. Oh, a (twin) 4.5′ gun – how familiar!

      • I was involved in the Beirut evacuation (84) onboard RFA Reliant as a Radio Officer. We had no armaments at all to defend ourselves. But in true Brit Spirit we coped.

    • The idea that some US vessels weren’t available as they were undertaking a training exercise in civilian evacuation on the US East Coast bewilders me. Defense News reports they couldn’t go to Sudan as they hadn’t been certified as ready. Didn’t the US always used to have at least one amphibious ready group in the Indian-Ocean/Gulf region?

      • Yeah apparently the USMC needs 38 amphibious ships and they still can’t rescue anyone. This and the Iranian tanker captures shows how much the USN has run down its presence in the Gulf region.

        Thank god we stated forward deploying a frigate to their region.

        • Jim wrote:

          “”This and the Iranian tanker captures shows how much the USN has run down its presence in the Gulf region.””

          The Advantage sweet tanker is Chinese, manned by Indians and 1 russian on route to the US, the latest ship is owned by a Greek company, on route from Dubai to the UAE after leaving a ship yard (which is why it is so high out of the water) so I cant see how this is a US issue,

          The US hasnt any protection deals with either of the countries which own the tankers. which could also explain why the Iranians are targetting them.

          Could it be the Iranian mullahs are doing Putins bidding simply in which to the price of crude boiling over, which along with North Koreas postering, and the Sudan is simply to keep the West busy elsewhere whilst they continue trying to take the Ukraine. (Don’t mention the kremlin)

          • America has traditionally taken a more active role in defending all sea lanes which is why we ended up with flags of convenience. Maybe now shipping companies will realise they can’t just fly any flag they choose to dodge tax and regulations.

          • Very good point, on the fact these flag of convenience nations do not provide support for Freedom of the seas….maybe there needs to be more of a fair international effort in that nations pay to support anti piracy and freedom for the seas depends on how many flagged vessels they have…

        • It’s only about 7 hours sailing to Jeddah by frigate, less than the Hull-Rotterdam ferry. A Nimitz could do it in five. You don’t necessarily even need berths this time of year. Just pick them up in the morning, arrange a deck party with a little al fresco dining and drop them off in the afternoon.

          Okay I jest, but not entirely. The US will have many ships in the area and I wonder if their press is getting it as badly wrong as ours.

          • Yes there is certainly a role for a mid tier combatant procured in numbers. I’m hoping we ditch Type 32 and just role out 10 type 31.

          • T31 does look like good value so long as it’s reasonably well armed. No guarantee that the T32 will be Babcock. If it goes to BAE it’ll probably cost the earth if a bespoke design like the adaptable frigate.
            It the times demand it extra T31s can likely be made sooner. I’d like to see an extra 1 T26 in the RN for additional availability and CSG escorts and maybe 2-3 AAW type T31s, especially as the T83 are ages away. One has to hope for the best!

    • Exactly, there was no MEU/ARG available for either support of the earthquake in Turkey or the evacuation in Sudan. Deputy Commandant and Commandant have spoken publicly re this matter and Commandant testified in HOR. The Corp is stressed re platforms; uncertain whether there is a viable get well plan.

      • The Indian Ocean is incredibly far away from the USA. At Britains height it never managed to operate across three oceans. The USA has managed this but it’s not easy especially when security now dictates more forces in the Atlantic and the pacific.

        Much the same happened to the British empire in the run up to ww1 when it had to build the grand fleet to counter the German high seas fleet.

        That being said 38 amphibious ships seems like a massive amount, we are down to 6 or 8 if you include the Queen Elizabeth’s and Argus so 38 seems like a massive force if all you want is 3 ARG available in short notice.

        • That’s not actually true at the hight of PAX Britainic the RN operated across every ocean in the world. Generally speaking during the hight of pax Britannica the RN had the following foreign station (fleets) covering all the worlds oceans:

          Mediterranean fleet
          East Indies station
          China station
          Australia station
          affrica station
          America and West Indies station
          pacific station
          South American station

          this did not include the three home fleets

          The Royal Navy at its hight during pax Britannica was designed to fight two navel conflicts at any one time against the two other strongest navy’s anywhere in the world…

    • Maybe the UK ain’t so bad after all, agreed. But to be fair, the USN has been busy with an Expeditionary Fast Transport between Jeddah and Port Sudan according to at least one newsreel I saw and MarineTraffic.com

    • Our evacuation may have started a little slower than others but it was the largest (28 flights, about 2000 people) and got out the most people. Half of those we rescued were Brits and half were from 20 different countries.
      NEO is a very difficult and dangerous operation with the possibilities of much to go wrong – our one went brilliantly well. No plaudits from the media though.

      • It’s now 2,450 people airlifted to safety, Graham. (According to the Foreign Office last night). More than any other European country.

        Some of the uninformed comments on Twitter by the public have been dismal. I fear social media has changed the discourse in this country much for the worse.

        • Thanks Alan. NEO evacuation is very complex with a lot of moving parts and is potentially highly dangerous and there is little to no time to plan or set things up and no chance to rehearse – and plenty of scope for things to go wrong.
          Our people have performed a minor miracle.
          [I wonder how many of those 2,450 people defied FCO advice not to travel to Sudan in the first place!]

    • USN has Puller an ESB ship in the Red Sea. I have Worked on it…its massive with lots of capability for Helo ops and SF ideal for just this sort of thing. There is a Fast Cat EFT there. Plenty of capability…again I have worked on one of those . Its basically a Car Ferry catamaran . Fast as Fu*k and can carry a lot of marines and kit from Port A to Port B.
      Ther is also an AB there as well.
      The USMC is dripping because they didnt get involved.

  5. Considering every body moaned that the government wasn’t doing enough we are still taking ours and other nations nationals out.
    We also went in a day earlier than any other nation getting some nasty comments from Germany and the eu because they said we didn’t have permission to land a/c to evacuate, as it was we did have permission we just got on with it without telling anyone.

  6. Its been very interesting watching the power of the media over Sudan. As I mentioned before, the UKs first remit was to get out its diplomats who found themselves smack bang in the middle of a warzone (as in hundreds of metres either side of the Embassy) So the media then went full hog and berated the UK Gov for saving people who were posted there as part of the Gov.
    Then they decided that as the French and Germany had picked up their citizens and the Uk hadn’t, then the UK was remiss, things weren’t helped by Labour Mastermind and never a policeman around when you want one David Lammy when he asked in Parliament:
     
    “Why did other countries choose to evacuate nationals straight away when there was no ceasefire in place, while we chose not to?”
     
    Ah, the contributions of a labour politician who has never written a risk assessment out in his life, who no doubt would have joined in slating the Gov and the military if the crap had hit the fan. Hindsight is a wonderful thing and it appears so many experts have an ology in the damn subject.
    So due to media pressure the RAF, laid on 2 extra days of flights, followed by another day based out of Port Sudan. For the first 2 extra days, the Media (looks at that one which costs me £159, goes up next year to £172) complained stating that people had to turn back to Khartoum.
    Regards the extra day at Port Sudan, the Media are now asking why the Uk is only picking up British Passport holders, Sudanese NHS workers and their entire families and not anybody who tips up. They allow a so-called British Citizen to berate the Uk for taking in Ukrainian people but not the 65 members of his family stuck in Sudan. The otherday the ITVX ran with a story about how one geezer who left the UK to live in the Sudan in 2014, is angry over how he hasn’t been given a house. Today Green MP Caroline Lucas, is asking why the Uk hasn’t opened up an avenue to take in desperate people in a country larger than Spain, France, Holland, Belgium, Germany and Italy combined (pop 48 million) where the vast majority of fighting is in one city the capital Khartoum.
    Meanwhile whilst the Media, MPs and the usual suspects berate the Uk for been slow to rescue Sudanese passport holders who work in the NHS, they fail to mention the cries over a lack of medical doctors in…Sudan.
     
    Before any ethical tofu eater thinks I’m out of order, I have no problem with the UK rescuing people, I however do have a problem with my country been painted as far right because it has gone above and beyond in doing so in a country larger than Western Europe but with a similar sized population as Spain. My point, why don’t they simply move out of the way until the bunfight is over rather than demand the right to move to another country, where within weeks they will be back in the motherland.

    So there lies the power of the media and mob justice, to that end I have to ask what happens when the next country implodes?

    • It would certainly be interesting to see how rapidly those rescued move back to Sudan.

      The papers seem to think that because RAF / RN exist they can be ready in 5 mins to do anything and in fact should have anticipated this and been pre positioned. Never mind awkward stuff like scoping out, planning, logistics, risk assessments (for troops, crew and those to be rescued), securing areas (probably loop back to stage 1 a few iterations).

      The thing you can be pretty sure about is that whoever is writing this guff has never successfully put a tent up in a sheltered camp site. But they will have been sheltering, in place, in a nice wine bar.

      But I think we can all imagine the amazing articles that would have been written, had if it has turned out, that the evacuees had been invited into a fire fight that the UK forces could not control!

    • Point 1: David Lammy, met him, a man of limited intelligence with a race chip on his shoulder 24/7.

      Point 2: Agree on all other points in your comment.

      Point 3: Reiterating point 1&2 👍

    • Agree on all points. As usual, yawning silence from your naysayers who simply have no answer to the truth and bloody basic common sense!!!

  7. Ok…Cardigan Bay.

    As most have read CB was in Maintenance in Bahrain when this kicked off. It was a pre planned repair period alongside for 3 weeks to conduct defect rectification and planned maintenance…It wasn’t a refit. It wasn’t a drydocking…just a bog standard alongside fixing stuff period.

    When the confirmation came in to hurry things along and get her away we in the yard had already started the process some days before. I had put two and two together and come up with four so I had warned my engineers and lads from the various departments that she may need to leave early. At the same time the ship was also doing its thing prioritising jobs that needed to be done and ones that where nice to have and didn’t affect OC. The issue was that the prioritised defects that needed finishing and the planned maintenance being undertaken did affect OC as it was all on systems that you would need for and Evac Job involving lots of people being onboard.

    Timing didnt help as it was also smack bang at the start of Eid ( more in a min!) with the jobs having a timeline and unfortunately that couldn’t be cut much shorter than it was despite working longer hours. One team working on a specific item spent the best part of 36hrs none stop assembling, workshop testing and fitting onboard a particular piece of equipment. It involved disciplines from Fitters and Turners, Mechanics, stagers, riggers, welders, NDT, painters to get it installed. A massive effort by those involved. BZ.

    Eid this year was the UK equivalent of having Christmas Eve on a Friday , having sat and sun for Christmas day/boxing day and then having two bank holidays at the start of the next week! Spare Parts delivery’s, manpower, Govt Offices, Customs, airlines, immigration are all closed or on reduced manning. Stress factor was high and I lost my rag with a lot of people in a lot of places who where not in office. I apologise to those answer machines that caught my ire!

    Anyway the remaining defects required welding, NDT and painting to complete. Most where fine and completed ahead of the planned timeline but the specialist paints for the Fresh water and Sewage systems that had been worked on had multiple coats and a long cure time. You cannot speed that up and it takes as long as it takes. If you are doing an Evac where you could be ferrying hundreds of people , having fresh water systems at max capacity (1000+ tonnes of water) and all of the sewage treatment plants working ( 500 people produce a lot of sewage!) is a good idea and essential for OC.

    Anyway she finished approx 36 hrs early and was away from us 24 Hours early. A quick Log stop at UKNSF and then she was away.
    Me? I had 12hrs off and then back to fixing the 2 other USN vessels that I was also doing as well in maintenance periods. They are still ongoing.

    A quick thanks to all my lot and the Ships Staff for getting CB away. Also the USN for me being MIA with them somewhat for a week. Hopefully the next maintenance period isn’t quite so manic.

    • GB, you and your lads are all “bloody marvellous”. Bloody well done!! 🇦🇺 🇬🇧
      Time for a feet up and a few 🍻!!

      • Unfortunately I was in last Fri and Sat last week, am in tomorrow so it’s basically a school night and I have to be sensible.
        I did tell the colonial cousins I wouldn’t be In on Saturday for obvious reasons. Us Brits are having a coronation day all you can eat and drink brunch..
        Might get messy!
        Back to work on sunday

        • Like the idea of an “all day eating and drinking brunch” and yes, God save the King too!!
          Long live the UK and all our brothers and sisters in Ukraine too!! 🇬🇧 🇺🇦. And not to forget all the other troubles parts of the world!

  8. As a youngster, I liked HMS Tiger & Blake, for their ability to carry 4 SeaKing helicopters each. When T45 are replaced, I would love to see two of them given extended hangers, so they can carry 2x Merlin + 2x Wildcat. Very useful for operations like this.

    • Regardless of all the pomp and circumstance, somebody somewhere picked up the fone , arranged it and all is well, a huge thank you to all involved.

    • There is certainly a case for a bigger ship to replace the T45s. This is not only for a larger number of missile cells, but I would suggest for a much larger hangar. The serious issue for an air defence “destroyer” is having radar placed high enough to extend the radar horizon. As this means the ship will see very low level sea skimming missiles earlier and thereby have more time to react and coordinate a response. Hence why Sampson is placed so high on the T45. However, you can only make the mast so high, as the top weight of the radar will have a detrimental affect on the ship’s balance.

      The T45s will normally be guarding the carriers. So in theory, they should have a few Merlins equipped with Crowsnest to provide airborne early warning (AEW) radar coverage. However, if the ship is tasked with providing support to a non-carrier task group. Then the group will have to rely on the T45’s radar and therefore the radar horizon will be quite close.

      If the task group can’t get land based AEW support. Then there are a number of ways to extend the radar horizon from a ship. Such as using a tethered aerostat balloon, or preferably mounted on a VTOL aircraft. A tethered aerostat will cause major headaches with trying to get a helicopter to operate to and from the ship, plus it is more susceptible to adverse weather conditions. Whereas if the weather is benign, you can pretty much have the balloon up 24/7. It would also be a lot cheaper to purchase, operate and maintain.

      An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is probably the most versatile method of placing a radar in the sky. Depending on the size of the UAV it will be able to fly around or above bad weather. But then the size kind of determines the type of radar the UAV can use. The obvious choice is a multi-panel X-band active electronically scanned array (AESA) radar that gives 360 degrees field of view. They can be relatively compact and lightweight, whilst giving pretty good performance. Especially against small stealthy fast low flying targets trying to hide amongst the sea’s clutter.

      The issue then is how big will the UAV be, especially if it has to operate from the destroyer’s flight deck? My favourite is still the Bell V247 Vigilant tilt-rotor, that was proposed for the USMC MUX program. It had the right take-off weight performance to carry around 1000kg. Which would be enough to carry four X-band AESA panels, plus its supporting hardware, whilst data-linking the raw radar data back to the ship for signal processing. But crucially, it could fly over 20,000ft (6096m) whilst being on station for over 11 hours. Thereby giving a radar horizon of around 200 miles. The Vigilant isn’t small, when folded up it has a similar footprint to a Wildcat.

      As the ship now has its own organic AEW, it can provide a much larger air defence umbrella. With the advantage of being able to engage very low flying targets a long way beyond the task group’s horizon.

      So if we considered that the converted Tiger class could snugly house 4 Sea Kings. This gives a rough size of what’s need to house at least 3 Vigilants (2 required for 24 hours ops, plus one spare in case of a breakdown) and at least one Wildcat. Plus a flight deck with two landing spots on it. The ship isn’t going to be small, perhaps more akin to the Tiger class cruiser at over 10,000t and 170m long!

      • Vigilant was marketed in a 13 ton MTOW class, not much less than the Valor even though its single engine would develop half the power of Valor’s two. I’m a big fan of tiltrotors where they can make the difference, but other than for the carrier group, I think we should have a single distance-extending radar carrier for the whole Navy from OPVs to destroyers; Vigilant is too big for smaller naval platforms while still not being capable of fully using a high-power AEW radar.

        Leonard is building a 3 ton MTOW demonstrator they unimaginatively called RWUAS (phase 3), but should fulfil the requirements for the RN Project Proteus. It’s sometimes compared to MQ-8C Fire Scout, which has 20,000 ft ceiling, 15 hours max endurance and 320kg max payload.
        Being developed from scratch, rather from an existing manned helicopter frame like Fire Scout, Proteus should have a better payload/MTOW ratio, though I doubt it would approach 1 ton. Advances in low SWAP radar might mitigate the need to have a high powered radar at all, and it could easily carry three 20×8 inch panels of the Osprey 30 radar giving 360° coverage (MQ-8C carries two). That’s not in the same league as an AEW helicopter but a significant advance over Camcopter/Peregrine in countering sea skimmers and surface threats.

        • Hi Jon what you say about the requirements of SWAP (size, weight and performance) is very pertinent. As a lot will also be determined by the aircraft’s airframe size and engine’s electrical power generation. However, unlike the Firescout, the signal processing can be done remotely, which saves on weight and power needs. But this then dictates that you require something like the F35’s Multi-function Advanced Data-Link (MADL) to handle the huge amount of raw data, something a quad stacked Link-16 could never cope with. Being electronically beamformed and steered, would also give it a very high resistance to jamming and detectability. Again something that Link-16 normally can’t do.

          It’s funny that you mention Leonardo’s Osprey 30 radar. Norway is fitting their Coastguard Merlins (EH101s) with 3 Osprey 30 AESA panels. Further the Italian Navy are fitting their EH101s with Osprey as well. At the moment they have said there are two paths they may follow. The first is a general aircraft fit with 3 Ospreys. The second is to fit a few aircraft with 4 panels of the Osprey 50. This is to replace the disastrous EH101 AEW’s HEW-784 radar, used by the Italian Navy. If you think Crowsnest had problems, the 784 is in a whole different league of issues.

          Why the reason for 4 panels instead of 3. As an electronically scanned array has a field of view of 120 degrees. This issue affects PESA just as much as AESA. In that when the beam or reception is at the the extreme edges of the panel. It becomes increasingly less efficient in both receptive/transmitting beamforming and generating effective radiated power (ERP). This is why the Arleigh Burkes for example use 4 panels. As it means that each panel when working in concert with the others can be programmed to only generate a field of view of 90 degrees. Thereby making the panel more efficient at detecting targets at longer ranges and giving more accurate bearing/height information.

          Leonardo have shown that their Osprey can be used very effectively for airborne surveillance, detecting and tracking targets. But also very good at spotting very small targets in the sea. As an airborne radar for a UAV, I think it is an ideal package.

          I was quite disappointed that the USMC cancelled the MUX program, as I believed the Vigilant had legs and could have been a good aircraft for the FAA. Like the Valor, the Vigilant could have been given the Osprey’s AE1107C engine. This would then allow it to fly at a higher cruising altitude but also increase its MTOW. But perhaps more crucially increase in electrical generation performance. The USMC are still looking at the MUX requirements for a UAV, but as separate programs to fulfil their CAS, but also for their own organic AEW to operate from their Gator carriers.

          For the RN’s needs. I think there is a definite need for a number of classes of UAV. A Schiebel S100 type is ideal for OPVs and Minehunters. Whereas a frigate/destroyer has the deck space and hangarage for something bigger. In my opinion the Proteus is too small and its performance unremarkable. Whereas something like the Vigilant would give a step change in capabilities and give the Navy options that smaller aircraft cannot give.

      • Well if you go back to the 1970s, the Italians had the Vittorio Veneto, that could take 9 Bell 212 or 4 Sea Kings on its 9500 tons. The Japanese had the Haruna class that carried 3 Sea Kings on its 6400 tons.

        • Good point, but then what is the differentiation between a destroyer and a cruiser? However, the Vittorio Veneto does show how large a flight deck you can have if you place the hangar below it. Which I guess means there’s less overall top weight, as the hangar is spread across the stern section. Thereby also giving you more volume for a large hangar. But then requires the complication of needing a lift to get from the hangar to the flight deck.

          As a concept it would be interesting to do a design study for a T83 with a Vittorio Veneto type of hangar/flight deck arrangement.

          • Agreed. I think the Treasury would veto anything of 10,000 tons or more, so any design would need to be under that, if only just.

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