Iowa woman on her husband’s 50-hour journey home to his family from Sudan conflict

Jacy Bunnell Ahmed

(NEW YORK) — Mohamed Ahmed went back to Sudan for the first time in 13 years for his father’s funeral earlier this month. He was scheduled to come back to his family in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on April 19 — but clashes between Sudan’s warring parties left him stranded and unable to immediately return.

His wife Jacy Ahmed said she’s anxious to see her husband again, as he’s now en route home via a 50-hour journey back to the U.S.

The conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) erupted on April 15. More than 420 people have been killed and 3,700 people injured, the World Health Organization’s Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office said Sunday.

Jacy Ahmed recalled when Mohamed told her that morning that he wouldn’t be coming home to his family when planned.

“He said, ‘Honey war broke out,'” she told ABC News. “‘I might have to stay in this country a little bit longer.’ And I just I flipped, I flipped out.”

She said they were able to communicate despite weak internet in Mohamed’s area.

“We typically speak daily or at least text,” Jacy Ahmed said.

Her husband had been staying in Omdurman, Sudan, with family, she said.

The couple met at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids, where Mohamed was learning English and Jacy was an adjunct, she said. Mohamed came to the United States as an immigration lottery selection, she continued, and they both spent a lot of time together before marrying. The couple is just months away from their nine-year anniversary; they run a local cleaning service and have three daughters who are 6, 10 and 13 years old.

“They would just say, ‘When is he going to be back; and he would say, ‘Well, soon we’re working on it soon,'” Jacy Ahmed said.

Mohamed Ahmed had a scary encounter when he was on the phone with Jacy and an aircraft was heard flying over the house in Omdurman, she said.

Jacy Ahmed said she could hear how loud it was, and her husband said it was causing the house to shake and doors to open.

“That was pretty scary,” Jacy Ahmed said, recalling when he told her.

Shortly after, Mohamed Ahmed planned a way home.

In order to leave Sudan, he’s taking an alternate route: A 40-hour bus from Omdurman to Aswan, Egypt; an 11-hour train ride to Cairo, and then a flight to Chicago, which is a three-hour, 40-minute drive from Iowa.

He waited hours for the bus in Omdurman on Sunday and, according to Jacy Ahmed, the ticket prices increased from $500 to $2,000.

“Every time a new bus comes, they raise it,” she said of the ticket prices. “It’s horrible.”

Jacy Ahmed said she couldn’t reach her husband after finding out about the increasing prices, and he didn’t have enough to pay for the ride. But Jacy Ahmed said a stranger miraculously lent him the rest of the money needed to board after explaining to the person who he was.

Minutes before speaking to ABC News on Tuesday, Jacy Ahmed received a text from her husband saying he’s reached Egypt as he continues his long journey home.

When asked what she will do when she first sees her husband again, Jacy Ahmed said she will run and jump at him.

“He’s 6-foot-5,” she said. “I’m sure I’ll cry.”

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Couple’s elderly parents who were caught in Sudanese conflict crossfire now in Egypt

Family Handout

(NEW YORK) — Family members of two U.S. citizens who were trapped in Sudan and had to endure major obstacles to leave the country are grateful they’re now in Egypt.

Imad, a Bay area resident who asked ABC News not to disclose his full name, said his parents Ahmed, 74, and Nafisa, 66, who are dual U.S.-Sudanese citizens, were in the country for the last few months trying to sell a property before retiring fully in America.

On Tuesday evening, Imad told ABC News his parents just crossed the Egyptian border and are out of Sudan.

Imad said last week he spoke to his father after he was missing for a few hours, when the fighting was getting more ferocious in a mall in Khartoum.

“He had to quickly find the escape plan,” Imad told ABC News.

Ahmed was able to stay in a hotel for two days while Nafisa hid in another part of the city, according to Imad.

“So when we speak to him on the phone, you would hear the bombs going off[ and] you would hear the heavy artillery,” Imad said, adding that he and his family felt helpless trying to help their parents thousands of miles away.

“I don’t think anyone would imagine their parents in a war zone and out of nowhere,” he said.

Imad’s family told Ahmed to make a run for it before the fighting got worse, and through the help of some other family members and other Sudanese families, made it to a borough north of the country.

After two days of hiding in the burrow, in territory controlled by the Rapid Support Forces, Ahmed walked for more than three hours to reunite with Nafisa, according to Imad.

“It was over 100 [degrees]. He got stopped a couple of times [at] checkpoints along the way. The RSF stopped them but he was able to cross the bridge… and safely make it to my mom in one piece,” Imad said.

The National Security Council has urged Americans stuck in Sudan to stay in place and diplomats were evacuated out of the country over the weekend.

“They don’t have any food. They just had to make a run for it,” Imad said.

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Taliban kills suspected ISIS-K mastermind of Kabul airport bombing: US officials

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(AFGHANISTAN) — The terrorist allegedly responsible for planning the August 2021 bombing at the Kabul, Afghanistan, airport that killed 13 U.S. service members and at least 170 Afghans was himself killed by Taliban fighters “in recent weeks,” U.S. officials tell ABC News.

A senior Biden administration official on Tuesday described the deceased leader of the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate (also known as ISIS-K or Islamic State Khorasan) as “the mastermind” of the attack, which involved a suicide bomber detonating an explosive device from within the dense crowds desperately trying to enter the Abbey Gate of Hamid Karzai International Airport during the chaotic U.S. withdrawal.

“We have become aware in recent weeks that the ISIS-K terrorist most responsible for that horrific attack of August 26, 2021, has now been killed in a Taliban operation,” the senior official said on Tuesday.

The U.S. did not coordinate with the Taliban in the killing of the ISIS-K leader, according to the official.

“We did not conduct this operation directly with the Taliban. We are not partnering with the Taliban. But we do think the outcome is a significant one,” the official said, adding that the U.S. did not learn of the killing from the Taliban.

The Taliban, which has been in control of Afghanistan’s government since 2021, is opposed to ISIS-K.

The senior administration official said that ISIS-K still aspires to extend the reach of its violent operations but so far has not grown strong enough to pose a major threat outside of Afghanistan.

But the U.S. military’s top general for the Middle East gave a dire warning in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee last month.

“Specifically ISIS-Khorasan, senator, it is my Commander’s estimate that they can do an external operation against U.S. or Western interests abroad in under six months, with little to no warning,” U.S. Central Command’s Commander Gen. Erik Kurilla said.

It is not clear why the Taliban has so far not publicly taken credit for such a high-profile blow against its adversary, according to the senior official.

The official would not give the name of the leader but said he “remained a key ISIS-K figure and plotter” after the Abbey Gate bombing.

While U.S. officials became aware the leader was likely killed soon after the Taliban attack, it took weeks until they were certain enough to begin informing the families of service members who were killed in the suicide bombing.

“It took a bit of time to go to a high level of confidence that this indeed was an individual who had been removed in the operation. And we of course we wanted to get that right before notifying families,” the official said.

The official said that there’s no expectation the news will take away the pain felt by grieving families, but “we felt and feel a moral responsibility” to inform them.

The Afghanistan withdrawal received renewed public attention last month after the most gravely wounded U.S. survivor of the blast at Abbey Gate gave powerful testimony during a GOP-led House hearing on the matter.

Marine Sgt. Tyler Vargas-Andrews, who lost two limbs in the attack, said he believes his sniper team had the suicide bomber in its sights before the explosion but was not allowed to take the shot.

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World’s second-largest tobacco company to pay over $600 million for violating sanctions against North Korea

Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images

(WASHINGTON) — The world’s second-largest tobacco company has agreed to pay what the Department of Justice is saying is “the single largest North Korean sanctions penalty in the history of the Department of Justice.”

The British American Tobacco subsidiary pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit bank fraud and violating U.S. sanctions against North Korea by selling tobacco products to the country between 2007 and 2017, according to newly unsealed court documents. North Korea rakes in as much as $20 for every $1 spent in the production and trafficking of counterfeit cigarettes, and “a substantial portion of this profit is believed to flow back directly to the North Korean government, its military and its WMD program,” according to U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., Matt Graves.

“To those companies and individuals thinking of evading international sanctions on North Korea, be forewarned. If you conspire with North Korea, you are helping to grow their illegal weapons of mass destruction and ballistic military programs.” Suzanne Turner, assistant director of the FBI’s Inspection Division, said at a press conference Tuesday.

The $508 million settlement BAT reached with the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control — the “maximum statutory penalty available” — is OFAC’s “largest settlement ever with a non-financial institution,” according to Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Brian E. Nelson.

“The DPRK’s murderous repression at home and relentless pursuit of nuclear capabilities threaten not just its own people, but the entire international community. Allowing funds to illegally flow into the coffers of the DPRK is an unconscionable act,” said Assistant Attorney General for National Security Matthew Olsen, who added that the case would “serve as a warning shot to companies” that attempt to evade sanctions.

The company noted steps it has taken so that it is “better equipped to lead a responsible and sustainable business.”

“On behalf of BAT, we deeply regret the misconduct arising from historical business activities that led to these settlements, and acknowledge that we fell short of the highest standards rightly expected of us,” Jack Bowles, chief executive of BAT, said in the Tuesday statement.

Beginning in 2007, BAT outsourced sales to North Korea to a third-party Singapore-based company, resulting in over $400 million in transactions passing through the banking system, according to the documents. North Korean buyers served as a front for the Hermit Kingdom, the documents add.

BAT says it has entered into a deferred prosecution agreement with DOJ while its Singaporean subsidiary entered into a plea agreement with the Department of Justice.

The company also entered into a settlement with the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, with the total amount payable to the U.S. through all three cases reaching $635.2 million plus interest.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Russia-Ukraine live updates: Russia pushes passports on occupied Ukraine

Anton Petrus/Getty Images

(NEW YORK) — More than a year after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine, the countries are fighting for control of areas in eastern and southern Ukraine.

Ukrainian troops have liberated nearly 30,000 square miles of their territory from Russian forces since the invasion began on Feb. 24, 2022, but Putin appeared to be preparing for a long and bloody war.

Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:

Apr 25, 1:03 PM EDT
At least 2 dead, 10 injured in strike that hit Ukrainian museum

At least two people were killed and 10 injured after a Russian missile hit a Ukrainian museum Tuesday, officials said.

The local history museum is located in the city center of Kupiansk, in the Kharkiv region.

“The terrorist country is doing everything to destroy us completely. Our history, our culture, our people,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on social media while sharing a video that showed the damaged building. “Killing Ukrainians with absolutely barbaric methods.”

Apr 24, 5:48 AM EDT
Russian passports pushed on occupied Ukraine

Russian officials have warned Ukrainians in occupied Kherson that they may be “deported” if they don’t accept Russian passports, the U.K. Ministry of Defence said Monday.

“Russia is using passports as a tool in the ‘Russification’ of the occupied areas, as it did in Donetsk and Luhansk before the February 2022 invasion,” the ministry on Twitter.

Residents of Kherson have been warned of penalties for those who don’t accept Russian passports by June 1. Some may be removed from the territory or may have their property seized, according to the U.K.

Apr 23, 11:42 PM EDT
Russia says US has denied journalist visas, vows it ‘will not forgive’

Russia said Sunday that the U.S. has denied visas to Russian journalists who wanted to cover Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s trip to New York.

Lavrov promised that the decision will not be forgotten by their side.

“The country that calls itself the strongest, smartest, most free, fairest has chickened out, has done a silly thing and shown what its sworn assurances on protecting freedom of speech, access to information and so on are worth,” he told reporters at the airport before his flight to New York.

“Most importantly, you can be sure: we will not forget, we will not forgive this,” the minister told the pool of journalists who have not been granted U.S. visas.

The journalists had planned to cover Lavrov’s appearance at the United Nations to mark Russia’s chairmanship of the Security Council.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov called the U.S.’s decision “outrageous” on Sunday, Interfax, a Russian news agency, reported.

-ABC News’ Anastasia Bagaeva, Edward Szekeres, Natalia Shumskaia

Apr 21, 3:35 PM EDT
Over 16,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been trained in the EU so far

Over 16,000 Ukrainian soldiers trained in the European Union, Josep Borrell, an EU representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, said Friday.

The EU has delivered over $600 million of ammunition and missiles to Ukraine, according to Borrell.

-ABC News’ Oleksiy Pshemyskiy

Apr 20, 7:08 PM EDT
Russian warplane accidentally fires weapon into Russian city of Belgorod: Defense ministry

The Russian Defense Ministry reported that ammunition from a Russian Su-34 military aircraft fell in Belgorod, a city in the southern region of Russia.

“On the evening of April 20, during the flight of the Su-34 aircraft over the city of Belgorod, an abnormal descent of an aviation munition occurred,” the agency said.

The ministry claimed buildings were damaged but there were no immediate reports of victims. An investigation is underway, according to the agency.

-ABC News’ Will Gretsky

Apr 20, 5:18 PM EDT
Ukraine’s ‘rightful place’ is in NATO: Secretary-General

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg held a press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv, to highlight the more than €150 billion of support to Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion.

“Allies are now delivering more jets, tanks, and armored vehicles, and NATO’s Ukraine fund is providing urgent support,” he said in a statement. “All of this is making a real difference on the battlefield today.”

While in Ukraine, the secretary-general visited Bucha and paid his respects to the victims of Russian atrocities.

He also laid a wreath at the Wall of Remembrance of the Fallen for Ukraine, paying tribute to all those who have lost lives or suffered wounds in defense of their homeland.

“Ukraine’s rightful place is in the Euro-Atlantic family. Ukraine’s rightful place is in NATO. And over time, our support will help to make this possible,” Stoltenberg said.

-ABC News’ Will Gretsky

Apr 20, 4:13 PM EDT
Russian athletes will not be accepted in 2024 Olympics if war goes on: Paris mayor

Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, which is hosting the 2024 summer Olympics, told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Russian athletes “cannot be accepted in Paris,” if the war with Ukraine is still ongoing when the games begin.

“Paris is the capital of human rights,” Hidalgo said in a statement. “We are trying to convince athletes, international federations and countries. We stand with you.”

Hidalgo and Vasco Cordeiro, the president of the European Committee of the Regions, met with Zelenskyy as part of the International Summit of Cities and Regions Thursday.

Zelenskyy thanked Hidalgo for her support and presented her with Ukraine’s “Rescuer City” honorary award.

-ABC News’ Max Uzol and Ellie Kaufman contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

First photos of evacuation of US embassy in Sudan released by US military

Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Maria A. Olvera Tristán via U.S Navy

(WASHINGTON) — U.S. military officials released two handout photos of the evacuation of the U.S. embassy staff from Sudan, marking the first official view of evacuees landing at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti.

The photos, taken by Navy and Air Force photographers, show staffers arriving at an airfield in Djibouti, the first stop as embassy workers fled the war-torn country.

One photo shows John T. Godfrey, the U.S. ambassador, being greeted by Maj. Gen. Jami Shawley, the general in charge of U.S. forces in Djibouti. In the other, two people hug on the tarmac with a plane wing visible behind them.

U.S. Africa Command released the images, which were dated April 23, 2023.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

As Sudan cease-fire announced, some Americans still struggling to escape

State Department photo by Chuck Kennedy/ Public Domain

(WASHINGTON) — After intense negotiations, the Sudanese Armed Forces & Rapid Support Forces had agreed to implement a 72-hour cease-fire across the country beginning at midnight Monday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement Monday afternoon in Washington.

Blinken added that the U.S. would “coordinate with regional and international partners, and Sudanese civilian stakeholders, to assist in the creation of a committee to oversee the negotiation, conclusion, and implementation of a permanent cessation of hostilities and humanitarian arrangements in Sudan.”

The statement comes after a successful operation over the weekend rescued dozens of U.S. embassy personnel and their families from war-torn Sudan, and top officials in Washington saying Monday they aren’t losing sight of the thousands of American citizens still believed to be in the country.

“In just the last 36 hours since the embassy evacuation operation was completed, we continue to be in close communication with U.S. citizens and individuals affiliated with the U.S. government to provide assistance and facilitate available departure routes for those seeking to move to safety via land, air and sea,” Blinken told reporters hours earlier.

While it’s unclear exactly how many Americans remain in Sudan, Blinken said officials had been in contact with “some dozens” who “expressed an interest in leaving.”

Blinken also said that the State Department was exploring ways to reestablish a diplomatic footprint in Sudan, possibly in Port Sudan — a city on the Red Sea and a destination for many fleeing intense violence in the capital, Khartoum. But Blinken cautioned it would depend on the conditions in the country, which he described as “very, very challenging.”

The secretary also said officials within the department were closely monitoring convoys transporting some Americans as well as other foreign nationals away from Khartoum.

“Some of them have encountered problems including, robbery, looting, that kind of thing,” he said.

While the Biden administration is standing by its warning that Americans in Sudan should not expect a mass evacuation, during a White House briefing on Monday national security adviser Jake Sullivan said it wasn’t completely off the table.

“There’s certainly a willingness to take steps to help Americans be able to get out of the country,” he said. “The president has asked for every conceivable option to be able to help Americans.”

Sullivan noted that conditions in the country would have to be deemed secure enough to carry out a larger operation before one could take place.

“Right now, we believe that the best way for us to help facilitate people’s departure is in fact to support this land evacuation route, as well as work with allies and partners who are working on their own evacuation plans as well,” he said.

Earlier on Monday, National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said U.S. drones were watching over a United Nations-led convoy that consisted of dozens of Americans, ensuring its safety as it navigated to Port Sudan.

Volker Perthes, the U.N.’s special representative of the body’s security-general to Sudan, said the journey took 35 hours to complete.

“We had some challenges on the road. It wasn’t first class airlift, but I think it was good that we all together moved out,” Perthes said. “Thirty-five hours in a not-so-comfortable convoy is certainly better than three hours bombing and sitting under the shells.”

While the White House is continuing to advise U.S. citizens still trapped in Sudan to shelter in place, saying it’s not safe to facilitate a mass evacuation, Blinken said American officials have been able to “facilitate Americans being folded into” some convoys.

The State Department is also collecting information from Americans in Sudan through a crisis-intake form that allows citizens to indicate they want to leave the country and need assistance.

Blinken said because the majority of Americans still there are dual citizens, the State Department anticipates many won’t want to leave.

But as the fighting enters its second week, remaining in an active warzone is becoming increasing untenable for many, like a Massachusetts teacher Trillian Clifford and her 18-month-old daughter Alma.

“To think that the two of them are in this much danger is horrific. She’s telling us stories about airstrikes within a kilometer of her apartment,” Rebecca Winter, Clifford’s sister-in-law said in an interview to ABC News. “Her situation is becoming more dire every day.”

Over 420 people have already been killed during the course of the conflict, and thousands more have been injured.

Explosions have inflicted heavy damages on Sudan’s infrastructure, complicating civilians’ efforts to flee. Widespread phone and internet outages have also been reported across the country, impacting stranded individuals’ ability to communicate with embassy officials or friends and family outside of the country who can provide guidance.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Sudan conflict sparks mass exodus of foreigners as locals remain trapped in crossfire

kdow/Getty Images

(LONDON) — Fighting in Sudan between forces loyal to two rival generals has triggered a mass exodus of foreigners, while locals struggle to escape.

A number of countries — including the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Spain, the Netherlands, Japan, Italy, Germany, France and Canada — airlifted and evacuated diplomats, embassy staff and others from Sudan’s war-torn capital over the weekend. Both the U.S. and Canadian governments also announced temporary suspensions of operations at their embassies in Khartoum.

An estimated 16,000 Americans — most of whom are dual U.S.-Sudanese citizens — remain in Sudan, according to John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council in the White House.

“These are people that grew up in Sudan, work in Sudan, families are in Sudan and they want to stay in Sudan, so it’s a number that is difficult to plan to specifically,” Kirby told ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos in an interview Monday on Good Morning America.

There are also several dozen Americans currently making their way to Sudan’s main seaport via a United Nations-led convoy, which the U.S. is monitoring via “intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets to ensure their safety,” according to Kirby.

“We still have military forces prepositioned in the region ready to respond if need be. But right now, it’s not very safe to try to run some larger evacuation either out of the nearby air base or even just through rotary lift like we did the other night because the fighting is so intense,” he added. “The safest thing for Americans to do — those who have decided to stay in Sudan despite the warnings to leave — is to shelter in place and to not move around too much in the city of Khartoum.”

Meanwhile, many Sudanese civilians are trapped in the crossfire or are risking their lives attempting to flee by car to neighboring countries. Sudanese filmmaker Amjad Abu Alala, who lives in Egypt’s capital, wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday that his family is “on the road from Sudan to Cairo through Aswan.” But he said his uncle’s wife, who has been in a coma since before the conflict, still needs help getting out.

Abu Alala also posted photos that his family had shared showing stray bullets on the balcony and in the exterior walls of their home in Khartoum. He wrote in an earlier Facebook post that he was “very worried about what is happening” in his home country but that “we all saw it coming.”

The violence erupted in Sudan on April 15 in a culmination of weeks of tensions between Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, the commander of the Sudanese Armed Forces, and Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, the head of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a powerful Sudanese paramilitary group. The two men were once allies who had jointly orchestrated a military coup in 2021 that dissolved Sudan’s power-sharing government and derailed its short-lived transition to democracy, following the ousting of a long-time dictator in 2019. Now, they are battling for control of the resource-rich North African nation and neither has shown any real indication of backing down, as proposed cease-fires have persistently collapsed.

The clashes started in Khartoum and quickly spread to other Sudanese cities, though “the heaviest concentration of fighting” remains centered in the densely populated capital, according to the World Health Organization, the global health arm of the U.N. The international community has repeatedly called on Sudan’s warring parties to immediately lay down their arms and engage in dialogue.

More than 420 people have been killed and over 3,700 others have been wounded in the conflict, according to the WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean Regional Office. At least 273 civilians are among the dead and 1,579 among the injured, according to the Sudan Doctors’ Syndicate, a pro-democracy group monitoring casualties. At least one American citizen has been killed in Sudan since the violence broke out, according to the U.S. Department of State.

The widespread clashes have left dozens of hospitals across Sudan either damaged or destroyed, according to the Sudan Doctors’ Syndicate, which called the issue “a clear violation of international humanitarian law.” As of Sunday, about two-thirds of hospitals in and around the conflict zones were out of service after being bombed, while others were under threat of closure due to a lack power, staffing, medical supplies, food and water.

The U.S. is concerned that Sudan’s conflict could spread further and has been in contact with the rival sides “every single day … trying to get them to put down their arms, to abide by the cease-fires that they themselves say they want and to return to some sort of civilian authority,” according to Kirby.

“We’re doing everything we can to get this fighting stopped,” he told ABC News. “This is a centrally located, very important, very large African country. We are concerned that other partners, other nations will be affected by this — not just in the region, but beyond — so that’s why we’re working so hard to get this violence stopped.”

ABC News’ Ayat Al-Tawi, Shannon Crawford, Ellie Kaufman, Luis Martinez, Joe Simonetti and Edward Szekeres contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2023, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

US embassy staff in Sudan evacuated in ‘fast and clean’ operation amid fighting

ABC News

(KHARTOUM, Sudan) — Under pitch black conditions and amid fighting, U.S. military forces swooped into war-torn Sudan in two Chinook helicopters and evacuated the American embassy in a “fast and clean” operation, military officials said late Saturday evening.

President Joe Biden confirmed the evacuation of U.S. government personnel from Khartoum under his orders and said the administration would continue to assist Americans in Sudan. Biden praised embassy staff, saying ina statement they “embodied America’s friendship and connection with the people of Sudan.”

“I am grateful for the unmatched skill of our service members who successfully brought them to safety,” he said. “And I thank Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Saudi Arabia, which were critical to the success of our operation.”

Biden said the embassy had been temporarily closed but “our commitment to the Sudanese people and the future they want for themselves is unending.”

Lt. Gen. Douglas A. Sims, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described evacuation operation as being “fast and clean.”

Sims said at a briefing that the mission got underway at 9 a.m. ET on Saturday, when two MH-47 Chinook helicopters took off from Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti, refueled in Ethiopia and flew into the Sudanese capital of Khartoum to evacuate the U.S. embassy. He said the special forces team was on the ground in Khartoum for less than an hour.

Sims said that “under” 100 people, including Americans from the embassy and other personnel from unidentified embassies, were evacuated, including all U.S. Marines who were providing security at the embassy.

Overall, the rescue helicopters flew 1,600 miles from Djibouti to Khartoum and back.

Sims said that for much of their transit, the helicopters flew in at 100 knots and low to the ground in pitch black conditions. He said the helicopters did not take any ground fire on their way in and out of Khartoum.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the suspensions of operations at the embassy in Khartoum were due to the growing security risk and ensuring the safety of personnel.

“The widespread fighting has caused significant numbers of civilian deaths and injuries and damage to essential infrastructure and posed an unacceptable risk to our Embassy personnel,” Blinken said in a statement.

The State Department updated its travel advisory for Sudan to reflect that the U.S. embassy in Khartoum had suspended operations. The department’s advisory for Sudan remains at its highest warning level — where it has been since August of 2021.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin noted the successful evacuation operation was conducted at Biden’s direction. He also highlighted the countries that assisted the operation.

“We also thank our allies and partners, including Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Saudi Arabia, which were critical to the success of this operation,” Austin said in a statement.

The Rapid Support Forces, the Sudanese paramilitary group battling Sudan’s army, issued a statement claiming to have aided in the U.S. evacuation.

“Today, Sunday, the Rapid Support Forces, in coordination with the US forces mission consisting of 6 planes for the purpose of evacuating diplomats and their families, supervised the necessary arrangements that preceded the evacuation process,” the statement read.

State Department Under Secretary for Management John Bass refuted those claims.

“That was not the case. They cooperated to the extent that they did not fire on our service members in the course of the operation,” he said. “I would submit that was as much in their self-interest as anything else.”

The Sudanese army said Saturday that evacuations of foreign diplomatic staff from the U.S., U.K., France and China will begin in the coming hours on military airplanes, as fighting persisted in the capital, including at its main airport. Their evacuation will be by air in military transport aircrafts belonging to their armed forces, the army said.

The Saudi Arabian mission was earlier evacuated by land to Port Sudan then by air to Saudi Arabia, Sudan’s army said. A similar evacuation plan will be secured for the Jordanian mission at a later time.

The rescue mission is the product of days of preparation across the administration and comes as the violent power struggle for control of Sudan that has already claimed almost 100 lives enters its second week.

On Friday, Austin told reporters U.S. forces had deployed to Africa to assist with a possible evacuation of U.S. embassy personnel.

“We’ve deployed some forces into theater to ensure that we provide as many options as possible if we are called on to do something,” he said during a news conference in Ramstein, Germany.

Austin and other senior administration officials said at that time that no final call had been made to evacuate the embassy.

Speaking late Saturday, Bass said the quickly deteriorating situation in recent days left the administration with no other option other than to turn to the military to rescue embassy personnel. But he said private U.S. citizens in the country should not expect similar assistance

“We certainly continue to be in close touch with many American citizen residents in Khartoum and elsewhere in Sudan to give them our best assessment of the security environment and to encourage them to take appropriate precautions to the best of their ability in and around that environment,” he said.

National Security Council Spokesperson John Kirby emphasized the challenges in conducting even a limited military operation in Sudan during a press briefing on Friday, remarking that it was “not as simple as jumping in a taxicab” and that at the time, all U.S. government personnel had not yet been consolidated in a single location.

Despite a 72-hour ceasefire agreed upon to coincide with the religious holiday of Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, deadly clashes between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces, a powerful paramilitary group continued through the weekend.

In a statement on Friday, Blinken urged both sides to uphold the truce.

“I reiterate my call on both sides to pause the fighting to allow civilians to take care of themselves and their families, to permit full and unimpeded humanitarian access, and to enable all civilians, including diplomatic personnel, to reach safety,” he said.

But both sides show little interest in laying down arms, and the violence seems poised to continue. An estimated 16,000 Americans are still in Sudan, but despite the ongoing danger, the Biden administration has repeatedly declared they should not expect a government-led mass evacuation.

“It is not our standard procedure to evacuate American citizens living abroad,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during a White House press briefing on Friday.

The U.S. Embassy in Sudan reiterated this saying, “Due to the uncertain security situation in Khartoum and closure of the airport, it is not currently safe to undertake a U.S. government-coordinated evacuation of private U.S. citizens,” in a statement Saturday.

Principal Deputy State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said that officials had been in touch with several hundred U.S. citizens in Sudan concerning “security measures and other precautions they can take on their own.”

But during the press briefing Saturday night on the evacuation operation, Chris Maier, assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, said the U.S. military is working on ways to help American citizens who make it to Port Sudan via an overland route get out of the country.

“In the coming days, we will continue to work with the State Department to help American citizens who may want to leave Sudan,” said Maier, adding that one way was to make the overland route out of Sudan “potentially more viable.”

“So DoD is at present considering actions that may include use of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities to be able to observe routes and detect threats,” Maier said. “Secondly, the employment of Naval assets outside the Port of Sudan to potentially help Americans who arrive at the port.”

The State Department has confirmed that one American citizen has been killed through the course of the conflict, but the limited information flow in Sudan could mean there are other victims not yet accounted for.

At the Vatican on Sunday, Pope Francis called for the resumption of talks to end the fighting in Sudan and offered a special prayer for “our Sudanese brothers and sisters.”

“Unfortunately, the situation in Sudan remains grave,” Francis told worshipers gathered in St. Peter’s Square. “Thus, I am renewing my appeal so that violence ceases as soon as possible and that the path of dialogue resumes.”

ABC News’ Morgan Windsor, Matt Seyler, Josh Margolin and Bill Hutchinson contributed to this report.

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‘We are holding on’: Scars of war visible near the front in eastern Ukraine

ABC News

(KOSTYANTYNIVKA, UKRAINE) — Alina Ivanchenko and her 9-year-old daughter, Zlata, waited as long as they could before leaving the city of Kostyantynivka in eastern Ukraine. Preparing to leave the relative safety of the central city of Dnipro along with a dozen other locals, the overriding emotion is bittersweet.

“We were postponing till the last minute,” Alina, 40, told ABC News. “We are leaving because of the child. She is afraid of the explosions.”

Zlata’s friends have already left, and many of their neighbors have long fled abroad.

The city, less than 20 miles from the frontline battleground of Bakhmut, has been on the receiving end of near daily shelling from Russian forces for the past two months, she said. Yet the instinct to stay close to their roots stopped them leaving until now.

“I don’t know [why it took so long],” Alina said. “We were thinking: later, later, because we don’t want to leave our home.”

Across the street from the bus stop, the reasons for their departure could not be more evident. In a Soviet-era residential area targeted by Russian shelling at the beginning of April, a destroyed house and a damaged apartment building stand as testament to what the city has endured. Six people were killed and more than 20 residential buildings in the series of Russian strikes on the city, according to the local administration.

Even so, Liubov Zaikina, 72, continues to pick litter from the streets in the heavy rain, the debris sunk into the pools of collecting water. She says she has no choice but to stay in the city.

“Where can I go?” she told ABC News. “I don’t have money to pay rent. There is nothing good I can say now about how it is in the city.”

The main civilian hospital in Kostyantynivka has been treating the wounded from Bakhmut and Chasiv Yar, the cities further east where the daily shelling is even more intense.

Dennis Borshov, 50, a resident of Bakhmut who was a farmer before the full-scale invasion, is recovering at the hospital. Earlier this month he was helping evacuate civilians from the city along with his wife and three other volunteers, when a Russian mortar exploded near their vehicle.

“There was fear,” he told ABC News. “Because just in one moment we all could have died. Thanks to the soldiers, they helped us and pulled us out of there in time. If not for them, we would have been left there. That’s it.”

Borshov now moves with a walker, and the scars on his leg show the area where shrapnel pierced his thigh. Luckily, he said, the shrapnel missed the bone, and the group survived, though one other was seriously injured. But his elderly mother is still in the city, he said, and because there is no cell signal, he has no way to contact her.

The months-long battle for Bakhmut has become the latest byword of destruction in the conflict. Heavy shelling has transformed the landscape, and Borshov’s hometown is now unrecognizable, he said.

“The city has been razed from the face of the earth,” he said. “It basically doesn’t exist anymore.”

Many of the doctors here have left, but crucially all of the surgeons have remained in their posts, tending to the complex wounds of those injured under the bombardment.

The hospital receives patients from the surrounding areas, and while many have been injured in by Russian shelling, the stress of living under the looming threat of the war has had an impact on the health of the elderly and pregnant women, Olena Fillipova, the hospital’s medical director, said. The maternity ward is in the hospital’s basement, and there Fillipova has observed an increased number of complications at birth.

But for the staff remaining there is a job to do, and the work continues — despite the daily challenges of living so close to the frontline.

“It’s hard to say, but I’m coping with this,” she said. “I’ve managed to hold on. We are all holding on. Our team are holding on. We have a faith that all of this will stay Ukrainian territory. And we deeply believe in Ukrainian victory. And this gives us hope for hold on.”

ABC News Uliana Lototska, Natalia Popova and Scott Munro contributed to this report.

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