The non-Noncombatant Evacuation of U.S. Citizens from Sudan

In the 40-some years I have been traveling the world for work, I have been remarkably fortunate never to have been in danger of death, severe injury, or kidnapping, though certain of my family members might disagree. I was in the Gambia in 1993 when a coup broke out the day before my scheduled departure, but as these things go it was a pretty mellow affair. The coup leaders closed the airport and land borders for a few days, but it later transpired that the sole fatality was that of a soldier who drove a stolen car into a lamppost.

Since I was on an assignment for USAID, the American aid agency, and had been in the U.S. Embassy delivering a final briefing to my client when news of the coup broke, I was pressed into service to activate the warden network – designated American civilians resident in various parts of the country who were supposed to contact the other Americans in their territory to organize evacuation if necessary. I was given a desk with a telephone and a list of the wardens, but many of the numbers were no longer in service and several of the people I did manage to reach had no knowledge of their status as wardens nor of the names and locations of other Americans in their area. In the event, the airport opened a couple of days later and no evacuation was needed, but the experience instilled in me some skepticism of the ability or inclination of my government to come to my rescue if I was in severe danger.

Fast forward to the events in Sudan over the past week or so, with intense fighting between the regular Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Force following three years of uneasy power-sharing and tacit agreement on which faction would have the right to plunder which resources.

From late 2019 until last October, I was helping to manage a UN-funded project in Sudan. Though not resident in the country, I made at least a dozen trips there, mainly staying in Khartoum, the capital, but with occasional visits to the provinces. Despite a high level of political tension between the two factions and with the civilian government with which they were supposed to share power and frequent street demonstrations that were sometimes met with deadly force, I never felt I was in any significant danger. Walking around the streets of Khartoum after dark was entirely safe, apart from the risk of falling into an open drainage ditch or getting run over by a car without any lights.

According to a recent article in The Atlantic, “The United States has, for decades, considered its commitment to its citizens abroad to be sacrosanct. For this reason, until very recently, the evacuation of noncombatants from conflict zones—known as a Noncombatant Evacuation Operation—was a relatively common and quintessentially American mission. When conditions deteriorate in a country, the U.S. ambassador can call for a NEO, and a Marine Expeditionary Unit or the Immediate Response Force of the 82nd Airborne will mobilize to get American citizens—not just American diplomats—evacuated to safety. During a NEO, the ambassador becomes the president’s direct representative on-site, in charge of coordinating who departs, how they depart, and when.”

The U.S. did send in special operations forces and helicopters to evacuate the roughly 100 diplomatic personnel and their families in country but ruled out similar interventions to protect or evacuate the estimated 16,000 Americans resident in the country. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan told the press that the administration would “go to great lengths to support and facilitate” their departure but ruled out any military intervention. He also pointed out that the State Department has been cautioning Americans in Sudan to leave the country for years and added, “Americans are free people. We cannot dictate where they travel, tell them they must go or not go to a particular place.”

The U.S. instead decided on “remotely assisting Americans trying to flee the country by road… helping Americans link up with convoys of foreigners attempting to make it through fighting toward safety on Sudan’s eastern border [and] placing intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets over the route from the capital, Khartoum, to the country’s main seaport… to scope out safety threats... [and] working with neighboring countries to get them safely over the border.” To me that sounds a lot like “You’re on your own, pal”.

OK, 16,000 is a lot of people. But other countries have done far more, and not just for their own citizens. According to Reuters, Saudi Arabia has evacuated 5,197 people of 100 nationalities, of whom only 184 were Saudi nationals. The U.K. has evacuated 2,122 of the estimated 4,000 British nationals in the country. Germany flew out 700 - around 200 German citizens and the rest from more than 30 countries, including Belgian, British, Dutch, Jordanian and U.S. citizens. France evacuated 936 people, including Britons, Americans, Canadians, Ethiopians, Dutch, Italians, and Swedes, as well as 400 U.N. personnel. Canada managed to get 550 people out, including 400 Canadians. Even Ukraine, which has other things to worry about, extracted 138 people: 87 Ukrainians along with some Georgian and Peruvian nationals.

Blaming the victims is never a particularly good look, though a reprise of the Afghanistan evacuation debacle would look far worse. And, in defense of those Americans who supposedly flouted State Department guidelines, it can be hard to take State Department travel advisories seriously when it issues Level 2 advisories “Exercise increased caution” due to terrorism and/or civil unrest for countries like Sweden, France, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands and Level 3 advisories “Reconsider travel” due to crime for countries like Ivory Coast, Jamaica, and due to arbitrary enforcement of local laws for China, Macau, and Hong Kong. Also, throughout most of the time I spent there, while strongly discouraging travel to Darfur and a few other states, the State Department either advised against nonessential travel to Khartoum or gave it the equivalent of a Level 2 advisory.

On my travels I have seldom registered my presence with the U.S. Embassy or signed up for the Smart Traveler Enrollment Program (STEP) program, which the State Department touts as “a free service to allow U.S. citizens and nationals traveling and living abroad to enroll their trip with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate.” On the evidence, I haven’t missed anything.

In the words of Elliot Ackerman, who wrote the Atlantic article cited above, “American citizens living abroad can hardly be expected to have predicted a crisis that intelligence agencies failed to see coming. For the U.S. government to allow its citizens to languish in a war-ravaged country on the grounds that they failed to predict the unpredictable is contrary to our values and at odds with the type of moral leadership the U.S. has long aspired to project outside its borders.” When Israel invaded Lebanon in 2006, the U.S. conducted a month-long exercise to evacuate “American—and many non-American—civilians from Lebanon on hundreds of flights that took place over nearly a month [with] a fleet of military aircraft and dozens of military and nonmilitary ships that shuttled evacuees from Lebanon to Cyprus and onward. No expense was spared.”