(Trends Wide) — US President Joe Biden reported Saturday that US government personnel have been evacuated from Sudan.
“Today, following my orders, the United States military conducted an operation to extract US government personnel from Khartoum,” Biden said in a statement.
In a separate statement, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that all US personnel and their families had been evacuated and that operations at the US embassy in Khartoum had been “temporarily suspended”. .
A group of just over 100 special operations forces participated in the extraction. The operation was led by the US Africa Command and was carried out in close coordination with the State Department, said Lloyd Austin, US Secretary of Defense.
The decision to evacuate US personnel comes after a week of heavy fighting between rival military factions, the Sudan Armed Forces, or SAF, and the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, which has left hundreds dead and thousands injured. .
Despite statements by both sides that they had agreed to such a ceasefire, the fighting has continued.
The SAF said in a statement on Saturday that its leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, had “agreed to provide the necessary assistance” to facilitate the safe evacuation of foreign nationals from the country in response to “calls from various heads of state.”
The RSF said in a statement released overnight Khartoum time that it coordinated the evacuation with the United States. Trends Wide cannot corroborate RSF’s claims that they collaborated with the evacuation.
The US Embassy in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum.
Ashraf Shazly/AFP/Getty Images/ARCHIVO
Although the US evacuated its diplomats, on Friday the State Department’s principal deputy spokesman, Vedant Patel, said that “due to uncertain security situations in Khartoum and the closure of the airport, Americans should not expect a coordinated evacuation by the US government at this time.”
Patel noted that the State Department has contacted “several hundred American citizens who we understand to be in Sudan” to discuss “security precautions and other steps they can take on their own.”
The State Department does not maintain official counts of US citizens in foreign countries, and Americans are not required to register when traveling abroad. Officials told staff Wednesday that there may be approximately 16,000 US citizens in Sudan, most of whom are dual nationals.
Trends Wide’s Eyad Kourdi contributed to this report.
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(Trends Wide) — US President Joe Biden reported Saturday that US government personnel have been evacuated from Sudan.
“Today, following my orders, the United States military conducted an operation to extract US government personnel from Khartoum,” Biden said in a statement.
In a separate statement, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that all US personnel and their families had been evacuated and that operations at the US embassy in Khartoum had been “temporarily suspended”. .
A group of just over 100 special operations forces participated in the extraction. The operation was led by the US Africa Command and was carried out in close coordination with the State Department, said Lloyd Austin, US Secretary of Defense.
The decision to evacuate US personnel comes after a week of heavy fighting between rival military factions, the Sudan Armed Forces, or SAF, and the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF, which has left hundreds dead and thousands injured. .
Despite statements by both sides that they had agreed to such a ceasefire, the fighting has continued.
The SAF said in a statement on Saturday that its leader, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, had “agreed to provide the necessary assistance” to facilitate the safe evacuation of foreign nationals from the country in response to “calls from various heads of state.”
The RSF said in a statement released overnight Khartoum time that it coordinated the evacuation with the United States. Trends Wide cannot corroborate RSF’s claims that they collaborated with the evacuation.
The US Embassy in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum.
Ashraf Shazly/AFP/Getty Images/ARCHIVO
Although the US evacuated its diplomats, on Friday the State Department’s principal deputy spokesman, Vedant Patel, said that “due to uncertain security situations in Khartoum and the closure of the airport, Americans should not expect a coordinated evacuation by the US government at this time.”
Patel noted that the State Department has contacted “several hundred American citizens who we understand to be in Sudan” to discuss “security precautions and other steps they can take on their own.”
The State Department does not maintain official counts of US citizens in foreign countries, and Americans are not required to register when traveling abroad. Officials told staff Wednesday that there may be approximately 16,000 US citizens in Sudan, most of whom are dual nationals.
Trends Wide’s Eyad Kourdi contributed to this report.
