Nations race to evac from Sudan

 

American special forces evacuated U.S. government personnel out of war torn Sudan this weekend, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in a statement on Saturday.

Troops from U.S. Africa Command collaborated with the State Department to relocate the civilians to other sites around the region, with help from nations like Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Saudi Arabia, Austin said. "About 100 U.S. troops in three MH-47 helicopters carried out the operation," the Associated Press reported Sunday. "They airlifted all of roughly 70 remaining American employees from a landing zone at the embassy to an undisclosed location in Ethiopia."

Some 16,000 Americans remain in Sudan, and most of them are dual nationals, according to the National Security Council's John Kirby. "These are people that grew up in Sudan, work in Sudan, families are in Sudan, and they want to stay in Sudan, so it's a number that is difficult to plan to specifically," Kirby told ABC News on Monday.

"We still have military forces prepositioned in the region ready to respond if need be," Kirby said. "But right now, it's not very safe to try to run some larger evacuation either out of the nearby air base or even just through rotary lift like we did the other night because the fighting is so intense." Kirby's advice to those still in-country? "Shelter in place and to not move around too much in the city of Khartoum." 

Cina's no show :- 

Several other nations rushed to evacuate their diplomats over the weekend, too. That includes the United Kingdom, Sweden, Spain, the Netherlands, Japan, Italy, Germany, France, and Canada. Reuters has a bit more on those disparate efforts, which have already seen an Iraqi citizen killed and an Egyptian wounded.