“The operation was fast and clean, with service members spending less than an hour on the ground in Khartoum,” said Lieutenant General. Douglas Sims, the director for operations at the Joint Staff. “As we speak, the evacuees are safe and secure.”
The move came on the eighth day of brutal fighting in the capital and other parts of the country between the army and a paramilitary group called the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), whose leaders are vying for supremacy in Sudan.
At least 400 people have been killed in the ensuing clashes and 3500 injured, according to the United Nations. They include at least 256 civilians who died and 1454 who were wounded, according to a doctors union.
As the situation deteriorated, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Molly Phee, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, had been in close contact with the US ambassador to Sudan, John Godfrey, officials said. Mr Godfrey – the first US ambassador to Sudan in a quarter-century – arrived in the country about eight months ago.
The first step, said John Bass, the undersecretary of state for management, was to get various embassy personnel who were “pinned down in apartments scattered around the city” consolidated in a small number of safer places.
As officials were working on that, he said, they began to assess that as the conflict continued, they could not reliably predict and depend on there being food, fuel, power and other critical supplies to keep the embassy operating safely.
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The RSF, led by General Mohammed Hamad Dagolo, said it is cooperating with all diplomatic missions and that it is committed to a three-day cease-fire that was declared at sundown on Friday.
Earlier, army chief General Abdel Fattah Burhan said he would facilitate the evacuation of American, British, Chinese and French citizens and diplomats from Sudan after speaking with the leaders of several countries that had requested help.
The conflict has opened a dangerous new chapter in Sudan’s history, thrusting the country into uncertainty.
“No one can predict when and how this war will end,” General Burhan told the Al-Hadath news channel. “I am currently in the command centre and will only leave it in a coffin.”
The current explosion of violence came after General Burhan and General Dagalo fell out over a recent internationally brokered deal with democracy activists that was meant to incorporate the RSF into the military and eventually lead to civilian rule.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Reuters

This data comes from MediaIntel.Asia's Media Intelligence and Media Monitoring Platform.