Ειδήσεις Ελλάδα
Comment on this storyComment
The Defense Department is pre-positioning troops near violence-racked Sudan in case U.S. diplomatic and other personnel there need emergency evacuation, Biden administration officials said Thursday.
President Biden made the decision earlier this week to move troops and equipment to a “nearby” base in Djibouti, as a U.S. diplomatic convoy came under fire in Khartoum and two nascent cease-fires quickly collapsed, said John Kirby, strategic communications coordinator for the National Security Council.
The troops have been moved “just in case they’re needed,” Kirby told reporters at the White House. “No decision has been made … about asking anybody to evacuate. … If the decision is made, we’ll have more to say at the time about the size and scale.”
“The focus now is on urging” both sides to stop the violence, he said, adding that “we have good accountability of all our government personnel there” who are sheltering in their homes or workplaces. The State Department is now focusing on trying to gather staff at a central location in Khartoum, the capital.
The decision to pre-position troops was “an outgrowth of things we’ve learned over the last year, year and a half,” Kirby said, referencing the August 2021 evacuation of Kabul and the more orderly departure of U.S. officials from Ukraine before last year’s Russian invasion. Both involved extensive planning and pre-positioning, although the Afghanistan operation descended into chaos when hundreds of thousands of Afghans seeking to escape the Taliban mobbed Kabul’s international airport.
The State Department has long warned Americans against travel to Sudan, and U.S. officials in recent weeks have made clear that any evacuation would not include U.S. citizens there in a nonofficial capacity.
Violence in Khartoum broke out nearly a week ago when a power-sharing agreement, set up during an attempted transition to democracy following a military coup in 2021, broke down between the forces of two rival generals: Sudan’s army commander, Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, who is head of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
Hundreds of civilians have been reported killed, and thousands injured, as heavily armed troops have rampaged through the capital. Civilians have been caught in the crossfire or directly attacked by forces from both sides, who have looted and seized numerous private residences and offices.
Families stream out of Sudan’s capital amid apocalyptic scenes of fighting
According to Abdou Dieng, head of United Nations operations in Sudan, where about one-third of the population of 46 million depends on aid for survival, “humanitarian operations are virtually impossible” since the fighting began. “Houses, vehicles and other humanitarian assets have been attacked, looted or seized,” and there also have been reports of sexual violence against civilians.
“There have been no humanitarian services in the last five days,” Dieng said by telephone from Khartoum, “simply because it’s not possible for any humanitarian workers to move outside their home or other location” where they have taken shelter. All airports and hospitals and most businesses in the capital are closed.
Dieng spoke to reporters shortly after U.N. Secretary General António Guterres held an emergency meeting with representatives from multilateral organizations and country representatives to discuss the rapidly deteriorating situation. “I appealed for a cease-fire for three days” to coincide with this week’s Eid al-Fitr holiday marking the end of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, he told reporters.
Calling the situation “completely outrageous,” Guterres said it was “a very important moment in the Muslim calendar. I think this is the right moment for a cease-fire to hold.” He said that his office had been “in direct contact with the parties” on the ground and that the first step following a cease-fire and dialogue had to be the establishment of a transitional civilian government.
But neither Burhan nor Hemedti, in separate interviews Thursday with Al Jazeera, showed any willingness to yield.
Behind chaos in Sudan is a broader global power struggle
“We are calling for a humanitarian truce and for a cease-fire for a specific period, but the other side does not want that,” Hemedti said. “But we are not talking about sitting down with a criminal. … Burhan was the one who started the battles and he is the one responsible for murdering the Sudanese people, so there are no future negotiations with him.”
Burhan said there is no party with whom “we can sit down to negotiate with now.” The RSF, he said, “vowed to eliminate the Sudanese army and the rule of Sudan, and it is now stealing the homes of the Sudanese.”
The two men blamed each other for the collapse of a cease-fire that was due to begin Wednesday evening.
