UK government has put out 'misinformation' regarding Sudan evacuations, escapee says

26 April 2023, 09:48 | Updated: 26 April 2023, 09:53

Leila Latif, who's escaped Sudan, says the UK government is only concerned about PR

Writer and broadcaster Leila Latif, who is now in Egypt after escaping Sudan, has said the UK government's putting out "misinformation" regarding their efforts to rescue Brits from Sudan.

Nick Ferrari asked the escapee: "What would you say to the Prime Minister [and] the Foreign Secretary who says the operation is moving at a speed, everything is being done, people are working flat out to help people like you and your family. How would you respond?"

"I would say that they are mostly concerned with PR," Leila Latif began.

The UK government "have been putting out a lot of misinformation about their efforts when in fact they have been doing noticeably less than virtually any other government," she declared: "and that is, to me, a scandal."

Leila Latif is a dual-national, British and Sudanese, her husband and children are British citizens. When they reached out to the embassy they were told information couldn't be passed onto the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office "for data protection reasons".

It took a contact from a friend back in the UK to hear back from the Foreign Office but it became apparent there was no plan, the mother wrote in The Guardian.

Ms Latif told Nick that the UK's Foreign Office had "abandoned" British citizens in Sudan even before the conflict worsened, since "they had no on the ground when this crisis started".

Of the senior staff's absence in Sudan, she said: "I think it's a sign of their levels of incompetence that they thought it was a fine thing during escalating tensions for their entire senior staff to take a little holiday."

READ MORE: Second evacuation flight rescuing UK nationals from war-torn Sudan lands in Cyprus

Nick Ferrari says UK's failure to rescue Brits from Sudan is 'an international shame'

Leila Latif explained how she and her family fled Sudan: "I got on a private bus, a couple of days ago on Sunday morning and we made a two-day journey North. We were at the Egyptian border for twelve hours, we slept in the dirt waiting for the next ferry."

In her piece in The Guardian, Ms Latif wrote about driving past tanks and large groups of soldiers on the journey to the border. "Men with machine guns got on board the bus twice on our way out of the capital," she wrote.

She told Nick her family is now "thankfully" safe in Egypt.

READ MORE: Britain finally seems to be reacting to the Sudan crisis

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