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US says Sudan diplomacy ‘degraded’ but continues after pullout

With the US Embassy in Khartoum indefinitely closed, the Biden administration is exploring whether to base US diplomats out of Port Sudan.
A picture taken on October 7, 2017 shows a view of the exterior of the US embassy in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. / AFP PHOTO / ASHRAF SHAZLY (Photo credit should read ASHRAF SHAZLY/AFP via Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — The United States is pushing for an immediate end to the bloodshed that threatens to tear apart Sudan and destabilize the wider Horn of Africa region, but it now must do so without any American diplomats stationed in Africa’s third-largest country. 

Washington whisked diplomatic personnel out of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, on Saturday, just over a week after the conflict broke out between forces loyal to Sudan’s warring generals, army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan “Hemedti” Dagalo, who leads the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). 

The special forces operation to airlift US government personnel and their families out of Sudan on MH-47 Chinook helicopters came as the fighting raged in Khartoum and its twin city, Omdurman. More than 400 people, including one US citizen, have died in the clashes between Hemedti and Burhan’s forces, and millions more are stranded with limited access to food and water. 

US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Molly Phee told reporters late Saturday that the US diplomatic effort in Sudan would be “degraded” but “not abated” as the embassy suspends operations for what the Biden administration hopes will be a temporary period until security conditions improve. A number of locally employed staff remain in a "caretaker status" at the embassy compound, which is located on the southern fringes of Khartoum. 

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