Ahmed Haroun, a former minister in former Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s government, who is wanted by the International Criminal Court, has escaped from a Khartoum prison.

Haroun said that he and other former officials of Bashir’s government had left Kober prison and would take responsibility for their own protection, in a statement aired on Sudan’s Tayba TV on Tuesday.

Fighting flared anew in Sudan late on Tuesday despite a ceasefire declaration by the warring factions as more people fled Khartoum in the chaos.

The Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) agreed to a 72-hour ceasefire beginning on Tuesday after negotiations mediated by the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.

But gunfire and explosions could be heard after nightfall in Omdurman, one of Khartoum’s sister cities on the Nile River where the army used drones to target RSF positions, a Reuters reporter said.

U.N. special envoy on Sudan Volker Perthes told the U.N. Security Council on Tuesday that the ceasefire “seems to be holding in some parts so far.”

But he said that neither party showed readiness to “seriously negotiate, suggesting that both think that securing a military victory over the other is possible.”

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“This is a miscalculation,” Perthes said, adding that Khartoum’s airport was operational but the tarmac damaged.

Evacuation of foreigners

The first Turkish civilians evacuated from Sudan returned to Turkey on Wednesday and Saudi Arabia said it evacuated 13 of its nationals and 1,674 other individuals with no sign the warring parties are ready to seriously negotiate.

The Turks came from the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, having reached their land from Khartoum.

Evacuees of different nationalities fleeing the military conflict in Sudan arrived in Jeddah on Wednesday on a ferry sent by Saudi Arabia to bring them to safety.

Television footage showed the ferry sailing in with crowds of people on the deck, followed by the evacuees disembarking and getting onto awaiting buses.

Britain has evacuated 200-300 of its citizens from conflict-ridden Sudan, interior minister Suella Braverman said on Wednesday, adding that an “extensive operation” was underway to help Britons stranded in the North African country.

A passenger plane belonging to Britain’s Royal Air Force with about 40 civilians on board landed on the island of Cyprus on Tuesday, a spokesperson for Cyprus’s foreign ministry said late evening.

The government has estimated that around 4,000 Britons were stuck in Sudan.

An airplane carrying evacuees from Sudan, including the French ambassador, arrived in France on Wednesday.

Evacuees were greeted by officials, including French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, as they arrived at the Charles de Gaulle Airport on Wednesday morning.

France has evacuated more than 500 people from Sudan, including more than 200 French citizens as well as Americans, Britons and others, President Emmanuel Macron told his government a day earlier.