US troops have been dispatched to Djibouti in preparation for a possible evacuation from war-torn Sudan.
According to the Pentagon, the additional soldiers and capabilities are being dispatched to Djibouti, where 5,000 US military personnel are stationed at Camp Lemonnier, the massive US military post that serves as the core for US military operations in the Horn of Africa.
Since the weekend, fierce combat has raged in Sudan’s capital city of Khartoum between the Sudanese Army and a paramilitary force, creating security worries for people from other nations who have been caught by the violence.
The violence has claimed the lives of almost 330 people. According to the Pentagon, there are around 16,000 American citizens in Sudan.
“The Department of Defense, through U.S. Africa Command, is monitoring the situation in Sudan and conducting prudent planning for various contingencies,” said a Defense Department spokesman, Lt. Col. Phil Ventura.
“As part of this, we are deploying additional capabilities nearby in the region for contingency purposes related to securing and potentially facilitating the departure of U.S. Embassy personnel from Sudan, if circumstances require it,” Ventura explained. We do not speculate on prospective future operations as a matter of policy or security.
“He authorized the military to move forward with prepositioning forces and developing options in case, and I want to stress right now, in case there’s a need for an evacuation,” John Kirby, the National Security Council’s coordinator for strategic communications, told reporters at a White House briefing.
“We want to make sure we’ve got the capability ready in case it’s needed,” Kirby said, emphasizing that no decision to evacuate American diplomats or people had been taken. He encouraged all sides to end the bloodshed and allow for a truce so that humanitarian aid could be deployed to solve food and medicine shortages.
