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After evacuating some 70 U.S. staff members and their dependents from the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum, the White House has announced that the deteriorating security situation is "not conducive" to executing an extensive military evacuation of all U.S. citizens from Sudan.
On Monday, National Security Spokesman John Kirby explained that due to the worsening civil conflict in Sudan, U.S. citizens are on their own to evacuate themselves, however, the State Department will assist with "planning for their own safety."
"Well, we have military forces still prepositioned nearby in the region... if they're needed, but quite frankly, the situation is not conducive and not safe to try to conduct some kind of larger military evacuation of American citizens," Kirby added.
"Actually, the violence is increasing is more dangerous today than it was just yesterday, the day before," he said during a CNN This Morning interview.
"And so the best advice we can give to those Americans who did not abide by our warnings to leave Sudan and not to travel to Sudan is to stay sheltered in place, stay safe and secure and off the streets of Khartoum," Kirby concluded.
According to the spokesman, the U.S. Embassy in Sudan had repeatedly warned U.S. citizens to safely leave the country ahead of the fighting that has occurred over the past week. More than 400 people have been killed and over 3,500 have been injured as rival generals, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan of Sudan's armed forces and Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have begun fighting for control over the country.
Kirby went on to note that the U.S. officials will still do what they can to assist citizens with leaving safely, however, he was quick to point out that many are dual citizens who live and work in Sudan and who may not be eager to leave, according to a report by Zerohedge.
"I want to push back on this idea that there's 16,000 Americans who want to get out. We don't have firm estimates of the exact number of American citizens who are in Sudan," Kirby explained. "We think the vast majority of these American citizens in Sudan... are dual nationals. These are people who grew up in Sudan, who have families there, work there, businesses there, who don't want to leave."
Kirby then went on to defend the Biden administration's hesitation to conduct a large-scale military evacuation saying that the fighting in Khartoum is "not in a situation where we would want people moving about too freely or too aggressively right now."
The U.S. is not the only country that has rushed to evacuate embassy workers and other citizens. France and Germany have both announced the evacuation of approximately 700 citizens after a German air force plane arrived in Berlin Monday morning.