The special forces on Sunday, swept in and out of the capital, Khartoum, with helicopters on the ground for less than an hour, AP reports. No shots were fired and no major casualties were reported.
U.S. special operations forces have carried out the evacuation of the American embassy in Sudan where there is an ongoing civil war.
The special forces on Sunday, swept in and out of the capital, Khartoum, with helicopters on the ground for less than an hour, AP reports. No shots were fired and no major casualties were reported.
With the last U.S. employee of the embassy out, Washington shuttered the U.S. mission in Khartoum indefinitely. However, there are thousands of private American citizens still left in the East African country as U.S. officials said it would be too dangerous to carry out a broader evacuation mission.
Battles between two rival Sudanese commanders entered their ninth day Sunday, forcing continued closing of the main international airport and leaving roads out of the country in the control of armed men.
More than 400 people have been killed since the war began on April 15, 2023, when clashes broke out across the country, mainly in the capital city of Khartoum and the Darfur region.
In a statement thanking the troops, President Joe Biden said he was receiving regular reports from his team on efforts to assist remaining Americans in Sudan “to the extent possible.”
He also called for an end to violence in Sudan.
According to AP News, about 100 U.S. troops in three MH-47 helicopters carried out the operation. They airlifted all of roughly 70 remaining American employees from a landing zone at the embassy to an undisclosed location in Ethiopia.
Ethiopia also provided overflight and refuelling support, said Molly Phee, assistant secretary of state for African affairs.
Biden said Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Saudi Arabia also assisted with the evacuation.
“I am proud of the extraordinary commitment of our Embassy staff, who performed their duties with courage and professionalism and embodied America’s friendship and connection with the people of Sudan,” Biden said in a statement. “I am grateful for the unmatched skill of our service members who successfully brought them to safety.”
U.S. Africa Command and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley were in contact with both warring factions before and during the operation to ensure that U.S. forces would have safe passage to conduct the evacuation. However, John Bass, a U.S. undersecretary of state, denied claims by one faction, Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Security Forces, that it assisted in the U.S. evacuation.
“They cooperated to the extent that they did not fire on our service members in the course of the operation,” Bass said.
Biden had ordered American troops to evacuate embassy personnel after receiving a recommendation from his national security team, with no end in sight to the fighting.
Sudan’s fighting broke out April 15 between two commanders who just 18 months earlier jointly orchestrated a military coup to derail the nation’s transition to democracy.
The fighting is between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo and the military under Sudan’s de facto leader and army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan
(Saharareporters)