A 'multi-SA government department' effort has assisted 41 trapped South Africans to be bussed out of Sudan, said Gift of the Givers Imtiaz Sooliman. A further 29 South Africans are unaccounted for.

Forty-one South Africans who had been trapped by warfare in Sudan left the capital Khartoum on Monday afternoon on two buses in a precarious journey to the Egyptian border to the north, arranged by the SA government. Several South Africans literally missed the bus because of communication problems and danger in Khartoum, but Gift of the Givers boss Imtiaz Sooliman, who is helping the SA government arrange the evacuation, said he was trying to arrange another bus for them on Tuesday.

Sooliman said the 41 South Africans and seven Angolans were on the road to Egypt in two buses owned by a Sudanese bus company Good Transport. It was unclear immediately whether the South Africans interviewed by Daily Maverick last week were on board.

They have no armed escort -- unlike the US diplomats who were evacuated by their military over the weekend.

"No, it seems along the way the different armed groups are not interfering with the foreigners," Sooliman told Daily Maverick. "They told me they had passed checkpoints and hadn't had any incidents." He added that Good Transporter had sent out several buses before this and would inform the South Africans if they ran into any problems....