Sudan and the Failures to Heed Advice
Ignore the government's travel advisories at your own risk. The U.S. isn't legally obligated to evacuate its ciitizens from troubled countries--especially if they've ignored travel advisories.
Here we go again. U.S. citizens (and many other nationalities) are stuck in a country from which they seek help evacuating, despite a U.S. Department of State‘s long-issued “Do not travel” advisory. This time it is Sudan. The U.S. has warned Americans for years to either reconsider travel to Sudan or not to travel to the country (State Department Undersecretary for Management John Bass stated that his department has cautioned Americans for more than a decade against travel to Sudan).
Since at least August 2021, the State Department advised Americans to “reconsider travel due to crime, terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping, and armed conflict“ (It also issued a Level 4 Do not travel to Sudan due to COVID-19).
In December 2021, the State Department “renewed its Level 4 Travel Advisory for Sudan”. It advised that U.S. citizens “Do not travel to Sudan due to civil unrest. Reconsider travel due to crime, terrorism, kidnapping, and armed conflict.”
In early October 2022, State reissued its Sudan travel advisory with updates to health information. It also advised that U.S. citizens “Do not travel to South Sudan due to crime, kidnapping, and armed conflict.“
On February 2, 2023, the U.S. embassy in Khartoum, Sudan issued a security alert due to terrorism (a convicted killer of two U.S. Embassy personnel was recently released) and reminded Americans that the country “remains at Level 4: Do Not Travel due to terrorism and other factors.”
In an April 13 security alert the U.S. embassy advised American citizens to avoid travel to specific areas of Sudan, and noted that “U.S. government personnel have been prohibited from traveling outside of the Khartoum/Omdurman/Bahri metropolitan area” until April 19, 2023. I always interpret such travel restrictions on the country team to mean “if even the country team with its intelligence and security resources (usually embassy security personnel and local security partners) are restricted from traveling to certain areas, maybe U.S. citizens and other visitors should rethink similar movements.”
On April 22, the U.S. Embassy suspended operations.
It is understandable that NGOs and maybe even dual citizens of the U.S. and Sudan would travel to and decide to remain in Sudan as long as possible despite the U.S. government’s advice to reconsider or not travel to the country. NGOs, for example, mitigate against Sudan’s food insecurity in addition to its damaged critical infrastructure such as health facilities. The suspension of NGO operations could lead to casualties unrelated to the country’s warring military forces. However, as I have previously written, all organizations have a responsibility for duty of care in regard to its employees and other hires, as successful civil lawsuits and Occupational Safety and Health Administration fines (for U.S. organizations) indicate.
American citizens–including the estimated 16,000 Americans who were in Sudan as of late-April–who ignore the travel advice of the U.S. State Department–should realize that the U.S. is not legally required to evacuate Americans from global hotspots. Contrary to pundits and authors who falsely state or imply the U.S. has previously always evacuated its citizens during crises and wars, the U.S. did not evacuate Americans from Yemen, Syria, Venezuela, and Kyiv.
In the case of Yemen, the U.S. embassy in February 2015 suspended embassy operations, relocated its American staff out of the country, and suspended all consular services (In January, Houthi rebels had seized control of the capital, Sanaa, including President Abd Rabuh Mansur Hadi’s residence and the presidential palace. The rebels placed Hadi under arrest). In its emergency message and notice to U.S. citizens residing in or traveling to Yemen, the embassy stated that U.S. citizens seeking to depart Yemen were responsible for making their own travel arrangements, there were no plans for a U.S. government-sponsored evacuation of U.S. citizens, and encouraged U.S. citizens wishing to depart to use commercial means.
The notice also mentioned that a travel warning for Yemen had been in effect for a number of years and that it “warns U.S. citizens of the high security threat level in Yemen due to terrorist activities and civil unrest.” I can attest to the terrorist activities to which the embassy referred. In my last military intelligence role, I provided recommendations to degrade and disrupt malign groups and activities in over 20 countries, including Yemen. One project I initiated and led, which I coordinated with numerous intelligence organizations, resulted in formal recommendations on sanctions, watchlisting, and other actions on over 60 Yemen-related entities (inside and outside of Yemen).
In the months prior to the suspension of U.S. embassy operations, the Houthis had captured parts of Sanaa, the U.S. embassy had reduced its American staff, and Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and associated groups had escalated its attacks in the country, targeting Houthis government institutions. But in April 2015 there were still an unknown number of Americans in Yemen desperate to leave the country.
The pundits and authors (and family members of those trapped in Sudan) have also pointed to the U.S. government’s evacuation of Americans from Lebanon in 2006 and Afghanistan in 2021 (Between 1991 and 2004, U.S. Marines evacuated U.S. citizens from conflict zones at least 10 other times) as what the U.S. government should immediately do for all Americans trapped anywhere regardless of the risks to U.S. military and diplomatic personnel and regardless of previous warnings by the U.S. government to depart or not travel to the country. Sometimes the might of the U.S. military is also mentioned as an additional, unquestionable reason to conduct these evacuation operations. The frustration throughout the U.S. government caused by these expectations seems evident.
As reported by ABC News, a State Department spokesperson noted the department “has listed Sudan under its highest-level travel advisory for months, which warns Americans not to journey to the country and advises that if they do, the U.S. government may not be able to provide help in a crisis.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “When it comes to Sudan, this is a warning – a level four warning that we provided to them many months ago, basically telling Americans who were there to leave if they could, and not to travel – Americans not to travel to Sudan. So, we’ve been very clear on that,”
According to AP News, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said the U.S. “‘will go to great lengths to support and facilitate’ the departure of Americans but also noted that the State Department has been cautioning Americans in Sudan to leave the country for years. He added, ‘Americans are free people. We cannot dictate where they travel, tell them they must go or not go to a particular place.’”
Indeed, as of May 4, 2022, the U.S. government has evacuated more than 1,000 Americans from Yemen since the start of the fighting in April. While wonderful and commendable, hopefully these evacuations from Sudan do not reinforce bad habits by organizations and individuals traveling to or living overseas, including ignoring the type of tips in my August 2021 article Four Things to Remember about Overseas Evacuations.