The White House says there is no large-scale military evacuation of remaining US citizens in Sudan
Following the State Department’s weekend announcement that all US personnel and their dependents had been safely evacuated from the US Embassy in Khartoum, which included about 70 US staff , the White House has continued to say that the security situation is growing “non-driver” for a large-scale military evacuation of all US citizens in the country.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Monday that the worsening civil conflict means remaining Americans are on their own to evacuate, but that the State Department will continue to help them “to plan for your own safety.”
“Well, we still have military forces pre-positioned nearby in the region… if they are needed, but frankly, the situation is not favorable and it is not safe to attempt any kind of larger military evacuation of US citizens. He continued: “Actually, the violence is escalating is more dangerous today than it was yesterday, the day before,” Kirby said in an interview on “CNN This Morning.”
Image source: Al Jazeera
“And so the best advice we can give to Americans who failed to heed our warnings to get out of Sudan and not travel to Sudan is to stay protected in placestay safe and secure and off the streets of Khartoum,” Kirby said.
He stressed that the US Embassy there had repeatedly warned that US citizens should make plans to get out of the country safely before the week of fighting the world has just witnessed. More than 400 people have been killed and more than 3,500 injured so far as the rival generals – General Abdel-Fattah Burhan of the Sudanese Armed Forces and General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) – battle for control of the country .
Kirby still said U.S. officials will do everything they can to help guide Americans who remain outside the country, but also stressed that many are dual nationals who live and work in Sudan and may not want to leave .
“I want to reject this idea that there are 16,000 Americans who want to leave. We don’t have firm estimates of the exact number of American citizens who are in Sudan,” Kirby said. “We believe that the vast majority of these US citizens in Sudan … are dual nationals. They are people who grew up in Sudan, who have families there, work there, have businesses, who don’t want to leave.”
But he also defended his rationale for not wanting a large-scale evacuation effort led by the military, as the fighting in Khartoum “is not in a situation where we would want people to move too freely or too aggressively Right Now”.
“The White House made it clear that they do not intend to do a military evacuation.”
Former Assistant Secretary of Defense @MickMulroy joins us after US Embassy staff in Sudan have been evacuated amid fighting in the country. pic.twitter.com/sjNMCUhrBk
— ABC News Live (@ABClive) April 24, 2023
At this time, many other countries are rushing to send military transport planes to evacuate their citizens. For example, France and Germany announced the evacuation of about 700 people after a German air force plane landed in Berlin early Monday.