WASHINGTON — Hundreds of Americans fleeing two weeks of deadly fighting in Sudan reached the east African nation’s port Saturday in the first U.S.-run evacuation, completing a dangerous land journey under escort of armed drones.
American unmanned aircraft, which have been keeping an eye on overland evacuation routes for days, provided armed overwatch for a bus convoy carrying 200 to 300 Americans over 500 miles, or 800 kilometers, to Port Sudan, a place of relative safety, U.S. officials said.
The U.S., which had none of its officials on the ground for the evacuation, has been criticized by families of trapped Americans in Sudan for initially ruling out any U.S.-run evacuation for Americans who wanted out, calling it too dangerous. U.S. special operations troops briefly flew to the capital, Khartoum, on April 22 to airlift out American staffers at the embassy and other American government personnel. Several thousand U.S. citizens were left behind, many of them dual-nationals.
More than a dozen other nations had already been carrying out evacuations for their citizens, using a mix of military planes, navy vessels and on the ground personnel.
A wide-ranging group of international mediators — including African and Arab nations, the United Nations and the United States — has only managed to achieve a series of fragile temporary cease-fires that failed to stop clashes but created enough of a lull for tens of thousands of Sudanese to flee to safer areas and for foreign nations to evacuate thousands of their citizens by land, air and sea.