White House says US ‘facilitating’ US citizens’ departure from Sudan amid outbreak of violence

The United States is providing information and a level of airborne defence assistance to allow Americans who wish to join overland convoys to leave Sudan the option of doing so, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Monday.

Mr Sullivan, who addressed reporters at the White House daily press briefing, said President Joe Biden has ordered “ISR assets” — meaning intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities — to monitor overland evacuation routes from the Sudanese capital Khartoum to the country’s largest seaport, Port Sudan.

“We have started to see a more regular pattern of convoys begin to arrive, including convoys that have Americans in them. Once at the port... we are using diplomatic facilities in neighboring countries to help those Americans with their onward travel so that they can get safely out of the country,” he said.

“We anticipate that this route will continue to be available for Americans who are looking to leave as convoys continue to get organized, depart Khartoum and arrive at the port of Sudan”.

Mr Sullivan also said the US is beginning to position “naval assets” in the Red Sea off Port Sudan “for any potential contingencies” as part of Biden administration efforts to provide “the kind of support and facilitation to help Americans who want to leave”.

The White House adviser said the Biden administration would “go to great lengths” to assist and facilitate US citizens’ departure from Sudan should any wish to leave, but stressed that US policy has not been to organise large-scale evacuations of Americans from war zones with the involvement of US military personnel.

“It is not standard practice for the United States to send in the US military into war zones to extract all American citizens. We didn't do it in Libya. We didn't do it in Syria. We didn't do it in Yemen, and no, we didn't do it in Ukraine,” he said.

He added that Americans “should understand” that the US will “facilitate their departure from difficult circumstances” and “try to protect them from arm as best as we possibly can,” but without a “broad expectation of a massive military operation to seize an airport or otherwise evacuate people from a country”.

The White House announcement comes as thousands of Americans remain in the Sudanese capital with fighting raging between two rival groups of soldiers bent on seizing control of the country’s government.

Rebecca Winter told The Independent her sister-in-law, teacher Trillian Clifford, is sheltering in place per instructions from the now-shuttered US embassy.

“[Their situation] continues to decline every day. The fighting got extremely heavy during the first two days of Eid,” Ms Winter told The Independent on Sunday. “Trillian and her baby were moved to a first-floor apartment to get away from the windows on the upper floor because there were air strikes just within one kilometre of her apartment”.

She added that her contact with her sister-in-law has been made more difficult by unstable internet connections.

“We have lost all contact and it’s the first time that’s happened in the nine days that she’s been sheltering in place ... it’s just an extra layer of frightening.”

The civil war between Sudan’s two most powerful generals, who just 18 months earlier jointly orchestrated a military coup, erupted into an unprecedented battle for control of the resource-rich nation of more than 46 million people.

The armed forces chief and the head of the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group have vowed not to negotiate or cease fire, despite mounting global diplomatic pressure. More than 400 people, including at least one American citizen, have been killed in the fighting, according to the United Nations’ World Health Organization.