Fleeing Sudan, US diplomats shred passports and stranded locals

In the frenetic hours before US diplomats left their embassy in Khartoum by helicopter in the dark last month, one last task remained.

Armed with shredders, sledgehammers and gasoline, US officials destroyed classified documents and sensitive equipment, officials and eyewitnesses said. By the time Chinook transport helicopters commandos landed next to the embassy just after midnight on April 23, bags of shredded paper lined the four floors of the embassy.

But the piles also contain paperwork that is precious to Sudanese citizens: their passports. Many had left them at the embassy days earlier to apply for US visas. Some belonged to local collaborators. When the embassy was evacuated, officials fearing the passports might fall into the wrong hands reduced them to confetti.

A month later, many of those Sudanese are stranded in the war zone, unable to get out.

“I can hear the fighter jets and the bombing from my window,” said Selma Ali, an engineer who turned in her passport at the US embassy three days before war broke out, on a crackling line from her home in Khartoum. “I’m stuck here with no way out.”

It wasn’t just the Americans: Many other countries also stranded Sudanese visa applicants as their diplomats evacuated, a source of furious recriminations from Sudanese on social media. But most of those countries did not destroy the passports, but left them in closed embassies – inaccessible, but not gone forever.

Of the eight other countries that answered questions about the evacuation, only France said it had also destroyed visa applicants’ passports for security reasons.

The US State Department confirmed it had destroyed passports, but declined to say how many. “It is standard procedure during these types of situations to take precautions not to leave any documents, materials or information that could fall into the wrong hands and be misused,” said a spokeswoman who asked not to be named under the agency’s policy. Ministry of Foreign Affairs. .

“Since the security environment did not allow us to return those passports safely,” she added, “we followed our procedure to destroy them rather than leave them unsecured.”

Ms. Ali, 39, had hoped to fly to Chicago this month to attend training, and from there to Vienna to work at a UN agency. “My dream job,” she says. Instead, she and her parents are locked in a house on the outskirts of the capital, praying that the fighting will not reach them.

“I’m so frustrated,” she said in a trembling voice. “The American diplomats evacuated their own citizens, but they did not think of the Sudanese. We are people too.”

Alhaj Sharafeldin, 26, said he was accepted for a master’s degree in computer science at Iowa State University and would pick up his passport and visa on April 16. Fighting broke out the day before.

Five days ago, the US embassy informed him by e-mail that his passport had been destroyed. “This is hard,” he said, speaking from the home he’s been sheltering in since violence engulfed his own neighborhood. “The situation here is so dangerous.”

The decision to destroy passports was heartbreaking for US officials who realized it would hinder the flight of Sudanese citizens, several witnesses and officials familiar with the evacuation said.

Particularly poignant was the fact that the passports of Sudanese employees were also destroyed. Some had applied for the United States government training; others had deposited their passports at the embassy.

“There were a lot of very distressed people about this,” said a US official who, like several others, spoke on an anonymity basis to discuss a sensitive episode. “We left behind a lot of people who were loyal to us, and we weren’t loyal to them.”

But the officials followed the same protocol that led to the destruction of many Afghan passports during the hasty evacuation of the US embassy in Kabul in August 2021, which was also a source of controversy.

Then Afghans who have lost their passports can at least apply for a new passport from the Taliban. But that option is impossible in Sudan because the country is the most important passport office is located in a neighborhood that is experiencing some of the fiercest fighting.

Given the circumstances, angry Sudanese wonder why it was not possible to evacuate US officials have their passport with them. “Couldn’t they have just put the passports in a bag?” said Mrs. Ali.

A passport is a “precious and lifesaving piece of property,” said Tom Malinowski, a former New Jersey congressman who helped stranded Afghans in 2021. “It’s a big deal to destroy something like that, and when we do, we’re obligated to make that person whole.

In interviews, foreign diplomats said it was practically impossible to operate in Khartoum after the first shots were fired on April 15, when clashes between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces, a powerful paramilitary group, quickly turned into full-blown war.

Fighter jets flew over Khartoum district, including most of the foreign embassies, and dropped bombs. RSF fighters charged into the street and returned fire. Stray bombs and bullets hit embassies and residences, making it too dangerous to even reach an office, let alone hand out passports, officials said.

Still, Sudanese critics said the embassies could have tried harder, especially since they went to such lengths to evacuate their own citizens. Military aircraft from Britain, France, Germany and Turkey flew thousands of people out of Khartoum. Armed US drones monitored buses carrying Americans as they traveled to Port Sudan, a journey of 525 miles.

Sudanese visa applicants who asked for help from foreign embassies carrying their passports say they were met with obfuscation, silence or useless advice, such as being told to apply for a new passport.

“There are no authorities in Sudan now,” said Mohamed Salah, whose passport is at the Indian embassy. “Just war.”

One country did provide some relief. Two weeks after the war, the Chinese embassy put a phone number online for visa applicants to collect passports.

The US Embassy, a vast area on the Nile in southern Khartoum, was miles away from the most intense fighting. Yet officials began destroying sensitive material days before President Biden formally ordered an evacuation on April 21, in scenes one witness compared to the beginning of the movie “Argo.”

Classified and sensitive documents were fed into shredders that pulverized them and spat out small pieces. Officials wielding sledgehammers crushed electronics and an emergency passport machine. Fire pits glowed at the back of the embassy.

The destruction became more frantic as the evacuation approached. Officials called for help with the shredding over the embassy loudspeaker. Finally, a few hours before Chinooks landed in a field between the embassy and the Nile, kicking up blinding clouds of dust, US Marines lowered the flag outside the embassy.

At the same time, other embassies were also in “full shred mode”, as one diplomat put it. A European ambassador said he personally broke his official seal.

It is not clear whether embassies that did not destroy passports made that choice or simply did not have enough time.

No government has said how many Sudanese passports have been destroyed or left in shuttered embassies.

No One Left Behind, a nonprofit that helps Afghan military interpreters, estimated several thousand passports were burned during the 2021 U.S. evacuation from Kabul, said Catalina Gasper, the group’s chief operating officer.

Fighting has exploded in recent days, despite efforts by Americans and Saudi Arabia to negotiate a ceasefire. With little prospect of an immediate return to Khartoum, foreign diplomats say they are offering to help visa applicants left behind.

The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs said it was in “active contact” with affected people in response to questions. The Spaniards advised them to “purchase another travel document”. The Indians said they had no access to their property.

“The embassy area is still an intense combat zone,” wrote an Indian diplomat.

Some people managed to flee without a passport. An official from France, who has evacuated about 1,000 people from 41 countries, said undocumented migrants were allowed to fly because officials knew “their administrative situation would be resolved later”.

That option was not available to most Sudanese.

Mahir Elfiel, a development worker stranded in Wadi Halfa, 20 miles from the border with Egypt, said the Spanish embassy had not even responded to emails about his passport. “They just ignored me,” he said. (Others made similar complaints.)

There was at least one solution: local officials helped stranded people cross the border by renewing their old, expired passports with handwritten notes. But Mr. Elfiel’s previous passport was stored in his office in Khartoum.

It presented a dilemma: return to the war zone and risk his life, or remain in Wadi Halfa until the fighting subsides.

“I don’t really have any options,” he said. “I’m just waiting.”