“As long as there are American citizens in Sudan who are seeking our assistance in leaving, we’ll continue to do this,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken promised Monday night, speaking of the U.S. government’s effort to help more than 5,000 Americans escape the conflict raging between Sudan’s two military factions.
As of Wednesday, more than 1,500 Americans have been evacuated from Sudan. Most evacuees travel 500 miles by bus from the capital, Khartoum, to the city of Port Sudan, then travel 180 miles by boat across the Red Sea to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, where they are finally considered safe in the care of U.S. officials.
After special operations forces dramatically rescued 70 U.S. Embassy personnel by helicopter, local Sudanese staff were left without any sense of where they should go.
Mohamad Bakr, an American who also has Sudanese citizenship, fled with his wife and two daughters by bus. He told ABC News, “On the convoy’s way to Port Sudan, we were stopped 10 times by the different groups. Some people lost their phones, some lost money. They took it. It was very dangerous.”
The Americans are the lucky ones: After special operations forces dramatically rescued 70 U.S. Embassy personnel by helicopter, local Sudanese staff were left without any sense of where they should go. As Western nations shut down their outposts and limited their aid to online guidance about seeking land routes, dual nationals became frantic about valid passports and ID documents: How can they flee to safety without proof of their citizenship? In the chaotic environment, will race become a factor of who gets recognized as Dutch, Italian or American?
The United Nations is now warning that the conflict could prompt more than 800,000 people to flee Sudan, raising alarm bells that Africa’s largest country could once again be the site of the world’s greatest humanitarian crisis. Many of the 50,000 people fleeing Sudan in recent days already escaped wars in Syria, Yemen and…
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