Washington
CNN
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President Joe Biden on Saturday said that US government personnel had been evacuated from Sudan.
“Today, on my orders, the United States military conducted an operation to extract U.S. Government personnel from Khartoum,” Biden said in a statement.
In a separate statement, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that all US personnel and their families had been evacuated and that operations at the US Embassy in Khartoum have been “temporarily suspended.”
The decision to evacuate the American personnel comes after a week of heavy fighting between rival military factions – the Sudanese Armed Forces, or SAF, and the Rapid Support Forces, or RSF – which has left hundreds dead and thousands wounded.
While steps were taken to evacuate government workers, the Biden administration has been clear that a broader evacuation of all US citizens in the country isn’t feasible.
Blinken said the “widespread fighting … posed an unacceptable risk to our Embassy personnel,” noting that “suspending operations at one of our embassies is always a difficult decision, but the safety of our personnel is my first responsibility.”
“I directed this temporary action due to the serious and growing security risks created by the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces,” he said.
Biden praised 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.”
“I am grateful for the unmatched skill of our service members who successfully brought them to safety,” he continued. “And I thank Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Saudi Arabia, which were critical to the success of our operation.”
Both Biden and Blinken called for an end to the violence, with the US President calling it “unconscionable.”
Biden said that he was “receiving regular reports from my team on their ongoing work to assist Americans in Sudan, to the extent possible.”
Blinken said the US government “will continue to assist Americans in Sudan in planning for their own safety and provide regular updates to U.S. citizens in the area.”
On Friday State Department principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said the State Department had been in touch with “several hundred American citizens who we understand to be in Sudan” to discuss “security precautions and other measures that they can take on their own.”
The State Department does not keep official counts of US citizens in foreign countries and Americans are not required to register when they go abroad. Officials told staffers Wednesday that there could be an estimated 16,000 American citizens in Sudan, most of whom are dual nationals.
The SAF said in a statement earlier Saturday that its leader, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, had “agreed to provide the necessary assistance” to facilitate the safe evacuation of foreign citizens from the country in response to “calls from a number of heads of states.”
The RSF said in a statement posted overnight Khartoum time that they had coordinated with the US on the evacuation. CNN cannot corroborate the RSF’s claims that they helped with the evacuation.
This story has been updated with additional information.
