The third batch of Pakistanis evacuated from Sudan has safely reached Karachi, The foreign office said Saturday morning.

Foreign Office spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch in a tweet said that “the government of Pakistan will continue to facilitate the safe return of stranded Pakistanis”.

The FO said that 97 Pakistani nationals, who were rescued from Port Sudan, arrived at Jinnah International Airport via Jeddah. They were bought back to the country in the Pakistan Air Force’s C-130 aircraft.

Earlier, a batch of 216 Pakistani nationals had arrived in Jeddah from Port Sudan aboard China Navy’s Weishanhu on Friday.

“We are grateful to our Chinese friends for this gesture of support and friendship,” FO tweeted.

A total of 260 Pakistanis – 149 in the first batch and 111 in the second – reached Karachi on Friday.

Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari also welcomed them and said that they arrived “via a PIA-operated airbus”.

“We will continue to work until every Pakistani in Sudan is evacuated and brought home safe at the earliest,” he added.

Hundreds have died and tens of thousands of people have fled for their lives in two weeks of conflict between the army and its rival, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Together, they toppled a civilian government in an October 2021 coup but are now locked in a power struggle that has derailed an internationally backed transition to democracy and is threatening to destabilise a fragile region.

The army on Wednesday said it agreed to a new three-day ceasefire through Sunday following one due to expire on Thursday night. On Thursday, the military reiterated it would extend the truce and said it would honour it unilaterally.

Responding for the first time, the RSF said on Thursday it too approved another 72-hour truce starting Friday.