Americans and other foreigners struggle to flee Sudan amid fierce fighting
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NAIROBI — Exhausted and terrified, Americans and other foreign nationals have been struggling to escape the fighting in Sudan, cramming into crowded port terminals, squeezing onto filthy buses and begging strangers for a ride to an airport in a desperate bid to reach safety. Are you on Telegram? Subscribe to our channel for the latest updates on Russia’s war in Ukraine. ArrowRight The United States, like other governments, has already evacuated its diplomats and their families, but tens of thousands of other foreign citizens remain behind amid fierce battles between the Sudanese military and a rival paramilitary group that erupted nearly two weeks ago.
So far, there has been no announced plan to evacuate the estimated 16,000 American citizens in Sudan, many of them dual nationals. By contrast, Britain, France and Germany have sent airplanes to Sudan to help evacuate their citizens, and other countries, such as India, have organized convoys to Port Sudan on the Red Sea.
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In the absence of a U.S. rescue initiative, Thwiba Eltom, a Sudanese American with two children ages 9 and 11, had initially tried to tag along with a Turkish evacuation effort but said they were turned away because Turks were given priority. “We took a very hazardous route going through armed conflict areas with the kids to get into the evacuation sites, but the buses left,” she said.
Eltom then set out with her children on the long drive to Port Sudan, 500 miles from Khartoum, hoping to catch a boat to Saudi Arabia. Videos sent from the coastal city, which is held by the Sudanese military, show thousands of exhausted people waiting in line for boats. Many had been there for days.
“I just wanted to share how upset all Sudanese Americans felt when [the] embassy evacuated only their own staff,” Eltom said in a WhatsApp message. “When seeing other countries evacuating all citizens, I felt I am a second degree citizen and not a priority.”
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An American engineer said he had been searching fruitlessly for four days for a ride, after the tires of his car were shot out, in an effort to leave the country with his four U.S. citizen siblings, including two adolescent sisters, and his elderly British mother. Artillery and missile fire have been exploding around them, and the girls were scared, he said.
“No one wants to come to my area. … The shooting is heavy and next to us there is looting,” said the engineer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect his privacy. “They could at least give us guidelines or instructions on the safe routes to take and a pickup point.”
A spokesperson for the U.S. State Department said it remains dedicated to helping Americans in Sudan. “This is a very fluid and dynamic situation. We have been in communication with private U.S. citizens, U.S.-affiliated businesses, nongovernmental organizations and implementing partners in the region about safety measures and other precautions that they can take,” said the spokesperson, who spoke on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the department.
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A team of consular officials in Washington “are working around-the-clock to communicate directly with U.S. citizens to keep them informed of options to leave Sudan as security conditions permit,” the spokesperson said.
U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters Monday that Washington was supporting evacuation efforts remotely but had no plans to send in armed forces. “We have deployed U.S. intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets to support land evacuation routes, which Americans are using. And we’re moving naval assets within the region to provide support,” he said, adding that the U.S. government is helping Americans who reach Port Sudan arrange onward travel.
The situation in Sudan is not comparable to that in Afghanistan, when the United States pulled out in 2021 and American military forces helped evacuate U.S. citizens, he said. The U.S. government had airlifted out thousands of its civilians from the chaos of Afghanistan because Americans could become targets of the new Taliban government. But during other crises — for instance in Libya, Syria and Ukraine — U.S. soldiers were not deployed to rescue Americans, Sullivan said, and he said there was no plan to send troops to Sudan.
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The fighting in Sudan between the military forces of Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the army chief and de facto head of state, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces lead by his rival, Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, has devastated Khartoum and other cities. The military has launched airstrikes on positions defended by fighters with rocket-propelled grenades and antiaircraft weapons. Rockets and mortars have crashed into civilian homes during street-by-street fighting in the heart of the capital. Four cease-fires have been declared and broken. More than 450 people have been killed.
At least two Americans have been killed. Bushra Ibnauf, co-founder of the Sudanese American Medical Association, was fatally stabbed Saturday on his way to his hospital. Ibnauf’s elderly parents were not entitled to an evacuation, so he had planned to stay to take care of them, according to his friend Nada Fadul. Another unnamed American citizen was killed last week.
Eman Khiri said her sister-in-law, who works for the United Nations, and that woman’s 5-year-old daughter, an American citizen, have been struggling to leave the country. The U.S. Embassy had sent them messages saying they could tag along with Turkish or UAE bus convoys, Khiri said, but only if they had their own private vehicle with enough gas for an hours-long journey to Port Sudan.
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“Seriously, man, what is this?” Khiri asked in outrage. “I am shocked. … Why are you asking us to follow the Turkish or the Emirates bus? How can she drive without a break for 22 hours? I felt humiliated. What are the Americans doing?”
To convey her bedridden mother to Port Sudan, Shahinaz Bedri, a Sudanese American who heads Sudan’s national public health laboratory, said she is converting a minivan into a makeshift ambulance by taking out the seats and fitting the vehicle with oxygen. Bedri said she was resigned to making a journey that could see her mother sprawled on the concrete in Port Sudan for days waiting for a boat.
“What choice do I have? The fighting is getting nearer. It’s getting worse, not better. I don’t have relatives here who can take care of her. Everyone is trying to get to safety,” she said, breaking down in tears as explosions boomed in the background.
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A few Americans have made it onto flights run by European allies out of an airfield 13 miles north of Khartoum. The French, for instance, have taken at least 500 people of 41 nationalities. Photographs from the airfield show burly European soldiers in body armor guarding exhausted families.
Reaching the airfield has proven daunting. Many streets are too dangerous to drive along, and many vehicles been shot up by fighters. Fuel is scarce, and some of the foreigners are elderly or otherwise unable to drive. Unofficial WhatsApp groups have mushroomed to share tips on car shares, roadblocks and dangers.
It’s not just Americans who are struggling. Sabreen Elbakri, who works in Glasgow, Scotland, as a doctor along with her husband, had been visiting Sudan with their two young daughters — both British citizens — when fighting broke out. She said she contacted the British Embassy the first day. They were directed to register for alerts, she said, but there was no communication until five days later, when they got an email with an international phone number to call for emotional support.
After eight days with no electricity, no water and little food — and after a bomb exploded near where they were staying — she contacted the embassy again. Elbakri said she was told no evacuation was planned. So she and her family took a bus to Port Sudan.
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“It was a 12-hour journey with a baby and a toddler through the scorching heat and constant checks” by rival armed forces, she said. And when they arrived, she said, she first learned that Britain was beginning evacuations from the airfield near the capital, which they had just fled. “My heart broke at that moment as I felt that the country that had been my home for the past six years didn’t value me,” she said.
Another British woman fled her house because it was in the middle of the fiercest fighting. She said she had not received any notice from the British Embassy about evacuation plans until Tuesday. By then, her family had already fled to Egypt, spending 24 sweltering hours at a border crossing after a 12-hour journey with multiple checkpoints, according to the woman, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect her privacy.
Her relatives, who were Spanish and German, had been taken out days ago, she said.
The British, she said, “acted too late.” She added: “They advised me to stay inside my home. I’m glad we didn’t listen. You can’t advise people to do that when their lives are in immediate danger.”
Parker reported from Washington. Missy Ryan in Washington contributed to this report.
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Source: The Washington Post
