Sudan: Thanasis Pagoulatos ran Khartoum's historic Acropole Hotel. Then he had to leave it all behind

THANASIS PAGOULATOS led his family business, Khartoum’s oldest inn, through decades of tumult. Sudan's latest breakdown proved too much. One of the few items he took when he fled Sudan in April was a note handwritten by Mother Teresa, after she stayed at the hotel. It says "God is love and he loves you. Love others as God loves you. God bless you." Read more.

Article at The New York Times
By Matina Stevis-Gridneff
Matina Stevis-Gridneff, a former guest at Khartoum’s Acropole Hotel, traveled to Athens to interview Thanasis Pagoulatos after his evacuation.
Published 16 June 2023 - here is a full copy:

He Ran Sudan’s Most Storied Hotel. Then He Had to Leave Everything Behind.

Thanasis Pagoulatos led the family business, Khartoum’s oldest inn, through decades of tumult. Sudan’s latest breakdown proved too much.

Image: Thanasis Pagoulatos, whose family built up the historic Acropole Hotel in Khartoum, was forced to evacuate Sudan in April. Credit...Eirini Vourloumis for The New York Times

Even as fighter jets tore through Khartoum’s skies in April and the streets became a dystopian war zone amid a showdown between rival Sudanese fighters, Thanasis Pagoulatos had no intention of fleeing.

Born 79 years ago to a Greek immigrant father and a mother from Egypt’s Greek diaspora, Mr. Pagoulatos had really known only one home: Sudan.

That’s where his family had put down deep roots, growing a business, the Acropole Hotel, that flourished through decades of near-constant upheaval. They were part of a thousands-strong Greek community that became integrated into Sudan and stayed on after the country’s independence from British colonial rule in 1956.

Through it all, life in that vast land  went on — and so did the Acropole.

Housed in an inconspicuous mustard-colored building in downtown Khartoum, the hotel teemed with archaeologists, journalists, humanitarians and adventurous travelers.

Image: The Acropole Hotel in Khartoum, in late April. Credit...Pavlos Pagoulatos, via Reuters

The Pagoulatos father, Panaghis, opened it in 1952, after arriving in Sudan seeking a better life as his native Greek island of Cephalonia lay in the ruins of the Second World War.

But the elder Pagoulatos died suddenly, leaving the hotel and other businesses in the hands of his powerhouse wife, Flora, and their three sons, Thanasis, 19 at the time, and the younger George and Makis.

The brothers, under the guidance of their mother, focused on family hospitality rather than luxury, and established the Acropole Hotel as a vital node in Sudan’s interactions with the outside world.

While offering basic accommodation — pristine but bare rooms, three square meals, consistent air-conditioning in temperatures regularly soaring over 100 degrees Fahrenheit — the family made the place a home. Guests flocked and returned, spurning fancier, bigger hotels.

Flora Pagoulatos died in 2010, but Mr. Pagoulatos and his brothers, their wives and later their children continued to run the hotel. Regular guests remembered each brother’s unique personality.

George, the middle one, was charming and discreet, an unflappable problem-solver. Makis, the youngest, was energetic and steadfast, and when Greece shut down its embassy in 2015, he became honorary consul, and the Acropole, the consulate. Thanasis was gentle and meticulous, paying attention to detail.

In his eight decades in Khartoum, Thanasis Pagoulatos — a tall man with soft white hair, blue eyes and a gentle voice — saw it all: coups (nearly a dozen), wars (civil, and with neighbors), famines (two).

In May 1988, he was in the hotel when a terrorist detonated a bomb, killing seven guests. With his brothers, he moved the whole business to the hotel’s annex across the street and carried on.

Image: Photographs of the original site of the Acropole Hotel, after it was bombed in May 1988. Credit...Eirini Vourloumis for The New York Times

When, in mid-April, heavy fighting broke out between the country’s army and the powerful paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, Mr. Pagoulatos cooped up in the hotel with his sister-in-law Eleonora, three staff members and four guests, and waited. Makis was in Greece at the time, and the hotel’s 50 rooms were mostly unoccupied, in part because of security concerns.

“We thought, ‘It will pass, it always does,’” he said in a recent interview in Athens, where he reluctantly evacuated to join the rest of his family.

Losing his beloved brother George, Eleonora’s husband, months earlier had already made this a terrible period for the Pagoulatoses. How much worse could it possibly get? It turned out, quite a lot.

For the first few days of the fighting, encouraged by Mr. Pagoulatos, the group — one Sudanese and two Philippine staff members, two German tourists, and a Brazilian and an Italian archaeologist — stayed calm.

They had no running water or electricity, but the kitchen had a basic stock of food and drinking water. Mr. Pagoulatos couldn’t fully fathom the chaos that was spreading across his beloved city, but he did know that it was at his doorstep.

Image: Khartoum at the beginning of May. Credit...Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/Reuters

Fighters would barge in demanding food or drinks and Mr. Pagoulatos obliged, to keep the group safe. At night, he recalled with terror, men rattled the padlocked front door.

Responsibility for his guests and staff weighed on him. “I felt that these people stayed with us, and through no fault of their own, they were in this situation,” he said. “Who would look after them? It had to be us.”

As civilians in Khartoum desperately sought help, and embassies rushed to get their staffs out, a small global tribe connected by the Acropole scrambled for news of Mr. Pagoulatos.

Central to that was Roman Deckert, a German researcher who first stayed at the hotel in 1997 and returned over the years, developing a bond with the family and recording their history.

Throughout their childhood in Khartoum, the Pagoulatos brothers often visited their father’s ancestral land in Greece. But Mr. Pagoulatos said he always yearned to return to Sudan. When he and his brothers were grown and married, they all lived near the hotel in the same building, and their children were raised like siblings, not cousins.

Mr. Pagoulatos was raised speaking Greek, Arabic and English. But he also picked up French and Italian, which came in handy at the hotel because over the decades, the family’s worldliness and interest in culture made the Acropole a hub and a symbol of Sudan’s cosmopolitanism. Before the application of Islamic law, the hotel held regular music events, and film nights on its breezy terrace.

“They made it easy for Westerners and other Africans to fall in love with Sudan and the Sudanese,” Mr. Deckert said. “They played a huge role in relaying a brighter side of Sudan to the world.”

Image: Mr. Pagoulatos and his brothers, as well as their wives and later their children, made the hotel a home. Credit...Eirini Vourloumis for The New York Times

For travelers like Dale Raven North, a Canadian lawyer who stayed at the Acropole last November, Mr. Pagoulatos and his family offered a haven. “It ended up being, I think, my favorite place I have ever stayed because of the Pagoulatos family and the environment they created,” she said.

For international correspondents, the Acropole was a home. Lindsey Hilsum, the British broadcaster, said in an interview from eastern Ukraine that she stayed at the Acropole during the 1980s, drawn by reasonable rates, safety and a telex machine that correspondents fought over to file dispatches.

For archaeologists, Mr. Pagoulatos and his brothers created a launchpad for decades of expeditions that uncovered treasures and secrets of the evolution of mankind.

“It is not an exaggeration to say that nearly none of the foreign archaeological projects in Sudan would have functioned without them,” said the Munich-based archaeologist Kate Rose.

Image: A handwritten note left by Mother Teresa after she stayed at the hotel. It was one of the few items Mr. Pagoulatos managed to take with him when he fled Sudan. Credit...Eirini Vourloumis for The New York Times

After 10 days holed up in the Acropole, Mr. Pagoulatos and the others with him were out of food and water. Through a contact at the Italian Embassy, they had been put on an evacuation list, and he got permission from the militiamen to set out on foot into the heat and dust of a devastated Khartoum. The group of nine walked past decomposing bodies, slowly taking in the full scale of the calamity.

Along the way, an elderly Sudanese man — “an angel,” Mr. Pagoulatos said — invited them into his home. The next morning, he found them a car to take them to an evacuation assembly point.

Mr. Pagoulatos and his sister-in-law were flown by the French military to neighboring Djibouti. Since they reached Athens, Mr. Pagoulatos, still shaken and emotional, has been feeling relief, but also a desire to go home to Khartoum.

“We left behind an icon of Jesus that survived the 1988 terrorist attack, and the big collage that the nongovernmental organizations gave us for our help during the famine,” Mr. Pagoulatos said.

“We need to get them,” he said. “We just thought we’d help the guests leave and go back to work two or three days later.”

A correction was made on June 16, 2023: An earlier version of this article misstated the year that Sudan gained independence from Britain and the year that the Acropole opened. Sudan gained independence in 1956, and the hotel opened in 1952, not the other way around.

Matina Stevis-Gridneff is the Brussels bureau chief, leading coverage of the European Union. She joined The Times in 2019. @MatinaStevis

A version of this article appears in print on June 17, 2023, Section A, Page 4 of the New York edition with the headline: A Lifetime of Hospitality, Disrupted by War in Sudan. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

READ 41 COMMENTS

View original and 41 comments here: 

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/16/world/africa/sudan-war-khartoum-acropole-hotel.html

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Kenya closes embassy in Sudan

Report at The EastAfrican - https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke
By Aggrey Mutambo
Dated Tuesday June 06 2023 - full copy:

Kenya closes embassy in Khartoum as violence worsens

Kenya’s Foreign and Diaspora Affairs Cabinet Secretary Alfred Mutua. Photo | Lucy Wanjiru | NMG

Kenya says it has shut down its embassy in Khartoum to protect staff, in what could close the door on any further evacuation for civilians and signal bad days ahead in the Sudan war.

Kenya’s Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary Korir Sing’oei said on Monday that Nairobi’s diplomats in Khartoum were facing safety risks, forcing the government to close the embassy, and upending Kenya’s initial policy of staying around to help pursue peace.

“We continue to receive disturbing news of the targeting of diplomatic officials by armed groups in Khartoum, Sudan,” he wrote on Twitter.

“[The] Kenya Mission in Khartoum which had remained open to facilitate evacuation of any Kenyans still in the country is now closed,” he added.

After war broke out on April 15, Kenya said it had helped rescue as many as 900 nationals plus those of other countries trapped in Khartoum. But officials said they would not close down the embassy as part of efforts to stay in contact with warring parties; the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

At a press briefing with his host Antony Blinken in Washington, Kenya’s Foreign Affairs and Diaspora Cabinet Secretary Alfred Mutua had said Kenya’s embassy would remain open as part of regional efforts to have parties descalate.

“As an African continent and the AU and intergovernmental organisation called IGAD, we are trying to find solutions for Sudan.  I know you’ve pulled your teams out.  Kenya is not pulling its diplomatic offices.  We’re not shutting them down because we want to have a presence as we negotiate,” Mutua had said on April 24.

This move may both reflect the escalating violence in Khartoum and the failure to have parties, at least respect a ceasefire. There have been six ceasefire deals between the SAF led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his nemesis Mohamed Daglo Hemedti. In all occasions, fighting continued. 

By Monday, UN agencies estimated that more than 1000 people had been killed and over 800,000 displaced, either internally or forced to neighbouring countries for refuge.

Last week, a mediation project pursued by Saudi Arabia and the US, and known as the Jeddah Talks, was suspended after the US labelled the parties unserious to end the war.

On Monday, however, mediators in Jeddah said they were still engaging parties to see how to resume.

Despite the formal pause on June 3 of the five-day ceasefire agreement, a statement from Jeddah said, “facilitators continue to engage them daily.”

“Those discussions are focused on facilitating humanitarian assistance and reaching agreement on near-term steps the parties must take before the Jeddah talks resume.

“Facilitators stand ready to resume formal talks and remind the parties that they must implement their obligations under the May 11 Jeddah Declaration of Commitment to Protect the Civilians of Sudan.”

Saudi Arabia’s influence on the warring parties in Sudan was always seen as a crucial tool to help end the war. But the fact that fighting continued even after ceasefire has illustrated a possible breakdown in command structures.

Back in April, Dr Mutua blamed unnamed Middle East countries for taking sides, and fueling the war.

“We have been quite concerned by some of our friends in the Middle East as (inaudible) Russia and others who for a long time have been friendly to either one or the other side.  And we are just saying that at this particular time, it is not a time to take sides in a war,” he said on April 24.

“We care about Sudan.  As part of the African Union, we want to silence the guns in Sudan, want to find an African solution to African problems with the support of our friends.  But we can’t effectively do that if we are talking to groups that are being strengthened every day by the parties who believe that all they need to do is to fight to the end.”

Last week, the African Union launched its ‘roadmap’ to attempt peace in Sudan by involving more political and civilian movements. It is yet to gain traction.

View original: https://www.theeastafrican.co.ke/tea/news/east-africa/kenya-shuts-down-embassy-in-khartoum-as-violence-worsens-4259588

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_________________________________

Cartoon 

By Omar Dafallah

Published at Radio Dabanga - dabangasudan.org

Dated June 2019

Saudi Arabia want El Burhan (the military) in power in Sudan

Credit: June 2019 cartoon by Omar Dafallah published by Radio Dabanga

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Fleeing Sudan, diplomats shredded locals' passports

NOTE from Sudan Watch Editor: One would hope passports are treated as respectfully as a nation's flag. You don't shred a nation's flag without it being interpreted as a terrible insult. This article doesn't make clear whether the passports destroyed by the US were in fact US passports. If not, it seems to me the passports were not their property to destroy. They should have left them behind safely. A country's border is man made. In today's age of digital technology losing a passport should not be a matter of life or death.

As rightly stated in the article: A passport is a “precious and lifesaving piece of property,” said Tom Malinowski, a former congressman from New Jersey who helped stranded Afghans in 2021. “It’s a big deal to destroy something like that, and when we do we have an obligation to make that person whole.” 

Let's hope priority is given to replacing all passports wrongfully destroyed.

____________________________

Report at The New York Times
By Declan Walsh
Reporting from Nairobi, Kenya
Edward Wong contributed reporting.
Dated Friday 19 May 2023 - full copy:

Fleeing Sudan, U.S. Diplomats Shredded Passports and Stranded Locals

Officials destroyed Sudanese passports on security grounds as they evacuated the Khartoum embassy. Now the passport owners are trapped in a war zone.

Image Sudanese army soldiers guard a checkpoint in Khartoum on Thursday. Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

In the frantic days before American diplomats evacuated their Khartoum embassy under darkness by helicopter last month, one crucial task remained.

Armed with shredders, sledgehammers and gasoline, American officials, following  government protocols, destroyed classified documents and sensitive equipment, officials and eyewitnesses said. By the time Chinook helicopters carrying commandos landed beside the embassy just after midnight on April 23, sacks of shredded paper lined the embassy’s four floors.

But the piles also contained paperwork precious to Sudanese citizens — their passports. Many had left them at the embassy days earlier, to apply for American visas. Some belonged to local staff members. As the embassy evacuated, officials who feared the passports, along with other important papers, 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 warplanes and the bombing from my window,” Selma Ali, an engineer who submitted her passport to the U.S. Embassy three days before the war erupted, said over a crackling line from her home in Khartoum. “I’m trapped here with no way out.” 

It wasn’t only the Americans: Many other countries also stranded Sudanese visa applicants when their diplomats evacuated, a source of furious recriminations from Sudanese on social media. But most of those countries did not destroy the passports, instead leaving them locked inside shuttered embassies  — inaccessible, but not gone forever.

Of eight other countries that answered questions about the evacuation, only France said it had also destroyed the passports of visa applicants on security grounds.

Image The US Embassy in Khartoum in 2017. Credit Ashraf Shazly/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The U.S. State Department confirmed it had destroyed passports but declined to say how many. “It is standard operating procedure during these types of situations to take precautions to not leave behind 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 State Department policy.

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

Ms. Ali, 39, had hoped to fly to Chicago this month to attend a training course, and from there to Vienna to start work with a U.N. organization. “My dream job,” she said. Instead, she is confined with her parents to a house on the outskirts of the capital, praying the fighting will not reach them.

Violence in Sudan

Fighting between two military factions has thrown Sudan into chaos, with plans for a transition to a civilian-led democracy now in shambles.

“I’m so frustrated,” she said, her voice quivering. “The U.S. diplomats evacuated their own citizens but they didn’t think of the Sudanese. We are human, too.”

Alhaj Sharafeldin, 26, said he had been accepted for a master’s in computer science at Iowa State University, and supposed to collect his passport and visa on April 16. A day earlier, the fighting broke out.

Five days ago the U.S. embassy notified him by email that his passport had been destroyed. “This is tough,” he said, speaking from the house where he has sheltered since violence engulfed his own neighborhood. “The situation is so dangerous here.”

Image Alhaj Sharafeldin

The decision to destroy passports was gut-wrenching for American officials who realized it would hinder Sudanese citizens from fleeing, said several witnesses and officials familiar with the evacuation.

Particularly distressing was the fact that the passports of Sudanese staff members were also destroyed. Some had applied for United States  government training courses; others had left their passports in the embassy for safekeeping.

“There was a lot of very upset people about this,” said one U.S. official who, like several others, spoke on the basis of anonymity to discuss a sensitive episode. “We left behind a lot of people who were loyal to us, and we were not loyal to them.”

But the officials were following the same protocol that led to the destruction of many Afghan passports during the hasty evacuation from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, in August 2021, which was also a source of controversy.

Then, Afghans deprived of their passports could at least apply to the Taliban for a new one. But that option is impossible in Sudan because the country’s main  passport  office is in a neighborhood experiencing some of the fiercest battles.

Image American nationals arriving last month for evacuation in Port Sudan. Credit Reuters

Given those circumstances, angry Sudanese question why evacuating U.S. officials could not  have carried their passports with them. “Couldn’t they have just put the passports in a bag?” Ms. Ali said.

A passport is a “precious and lifesaving piece of property,” said Tom Malinowski, a former congressman from New Jersey who helped stranded Afghans in 2021. “It’s a big deal to destroy something like that, and when we do we have an obligation 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 Sudan’s military and the Rapid Support Forces, a powerful paramilitary group, quickly spiraled into a full-blown war.

Warplanes zoomed over the Khartoum district including most foreign embassies, dropping bombs. R.S.F. fighters rushed into the streets, firing back. Stray bombs and bullets hit embassies and residences, making it too dangerous to even reach an office, much less hand out passports, officials said.

Still, Sudanese critics said the embassies could have tried harder — especially as they poured so much effort into evacuating their own citizens. Military planes from Britain, France, Germany and Turkey flew out thousands of people from Khartoum. Armed U.S. drones watched over buses carrying Americans as they traveled to Port Sudan, a journey of 525 miles.

Sudanese visa applicants who asked for help at foreign embassies holding their passports say they were met with obfuscation, silence or unhelpful advice like being told to get a new passport.

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

Image Mohamed Salah

One country did, however, provide some relief. Two weeks into the war, the Chinese Embassy posted a phone number online for visa applicants to retrieve passports.

The American Embassy, a sprawling compound by the Nile in southern Khartoum, was miles from the most intense fighting. Even so, officials worried that it would get cut off from critical supplies. So they began destroying sensitive material five days before President Biden formally ordered an evacuation on April 21, in scenes that one witness compared to the beginning of the movie “Argo.”

Classified and sensitive documents were fed into shredders that chomped them up and spat out tiny pieces. Officials wielding sledgehammers crushed electronics and an emergency passport machine. Burn pits glowed at the rear of the embassy.

The destruction grew more frenetic as the evacuation neared. Officials appealed over the embassy loudspeaker for help with shredding. Finally, a few hours before Chinooks landed in a field between the embassy and the Nile, throwing up clouds of blinding dust, U.S. 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 smashed his official seal.

It is not clear if embassies that didn’t destroy passports made that choice or simply didn’t have enough time.

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

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

IMAGE A man waves folders with documents at U.S. Marines as they secure the international airport in Kabul, Afghanistan on August 2021. Credit Jim Huylebroek for The New York Times

Fighting has surged in recent days, despite American- and Saudi-led efforts to broker a cease-fire. With little prospect of an immediate return to Khartoum, foreign diplomats say they are offering to help visa applicants left behind.

The Dutch Foreign Ministry said in response to questions that it was in “active contact” with affected people. The Spanish advised them to “obtain another travel document.” The Indians said they were unable to access their premises.

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

Some people did manage to flee without passports. An official from France, which evacuated about 1,000 people from 41 countries, said people without papers were allowed to fly because officials knew that “their administrative situation would be resolved later.”

That option was not available to most Sudanese.

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

Image Mahir Elfiel

There was at least one solution: Local officials were helping stranded people cross the border by extending their old, expired passports with handwritten notes. But Mr. Elfiel’s previous passport was stowed at his office back in Khartoum.

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

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

Image Smoke billowing in Khartoum on Wednesday. Credit Agence France-Presse — Getty Images.

Declan Walsh is the chief Africa correspondent for The Times. He was previously based in Egypt, covering the Middle East, and in Pakistan. He previously worked at The Guardian and is the author of “The Nine Lives of Pakistan.” @declanwalsh

A version of this article appears in print on May 20, 2023, Section A, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: Fleeing Envoys Trap Sudanese In a War Zone.

- A Rescue Operation: As feuding generals turned Karthoum into a war zone, two university students navigated a battered Toyota through the chaos and saved at least 60 desperate people.

- Fleeing Sudan: The violence has driven thousands of Sudanese into neighboring countries and caused an exodus of diplomats and other foreigners who were in Sudan when violence erupted.

- A Safe Haven, for Now: Egypt has relaxed border controls for Sudanese arrivals since the outbreak of the fighting. But officials, expecting busloads of poorer refugees to follow, worry about what comes next.

- A Failed Test: As the crisis in Sudan creates the kind of power vacuum that the United States had hoped to avoid, critics of the Biden administration are blaming a naïve approach to foreign policy for the violence.

View original: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/19/world/africa/sudan-us-embassy-passports.html

COMMENTS POSTED AT ARTICLE ABOVE

Sort by: Newest

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San Diego

May 20

So the Chinese Embassy retained and protected the passports they held for Sudanese.  We did not.  Two thumbs up for the Chinese.  One down for us.  Reflects our cavalier attitude.

123 Recommend

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Rhode Island

May 20

Horrifying, and should be prosecuted, but of course never will. It was not U.S. property to destroy.

76 Recommend

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NJ

May 20

It was my understanding, from NYT reporting, that American dual citizens were given quite ample notice to leave ASAP and that some, having various family and financial connections to the country decided to stay:  if that truly is the case, then sadly, this is on them, not the embassy staff.

35 Recommend

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USA

May 20

Frankly, I don’t know why these people waited so long to leave the country

21 Recommend

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SFNM

May 20

Gut wrenching. Have we learned nothing?

20 Recommend

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New Delhi

May 20

The State Department abandoned U.S. citizens in Sudan while crowing about getting their own folks out. No surprise that they shredded the safety of so many Sudanese who put their faith in the power and fairness of the United States. We have lost the trust of the world in so many ways large and small. We could have made better choices.

72 Recommend

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Living In Mexico

May 19

Sounds like there need to be changes to these protocols so that certain items, including the passports of non-US citizens, get taken with evacuated diplomats. I get that there’s only so much room on a Chinook. But it should be possible to calculate what is practical and design suitable emergency protocols. This has already happened at least twice and it will happen again.

On a more practical note, does Sudan still have embassies in the US, in DC and at the UN in NY? If so they could reissue passports and people approved for travel to the US could pick them up when they get here. It sounds like the numbers involved are small enough for this to be a real solution to this specific problem.

135 Recommend

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North America

May 19

With the technology available, it should not be necessary to take people’s actual passports away from them.  These people came to us for help and we made things more difficult for them.

140 Recommend

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james commented

May 20

@Bwspmn 

Set a blame in the US why don’t you blame the warlords that are tearing the country apart?

30 Recommend

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Philadelphia, PA

May 19

It seems highly unlikely that the details of visa applicants were not routinely sent to the home country for review, so each country should at least have been able to generate a list of people it had a moral responsibility to rescue.

49 Recommend

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Boston

May 19

Having the passports fall into the wrong hands, to be misused by the wrong persons for travel to the US or other countries, would be an ongoing security risk. There could also be danger or persecution of persons who were identified as having relations with the US, so destroying the passports does make some sense. How much better to have scanned them and then taken the physical documents when evacuating. What more important items could there be when getting people to safety?

75 Recommend

ICRC: Qatar sends medical aid from Doha to Sudan

Report from Qatar Tribune

Dated Saturday 13 May 2023 - full copy:

Qatari plane carrying medical aid provided by ICRC arrives in Port Sudan

QNA

A Qatari aircraft carrying 15 tons of medical aid provided by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) arrived at Port Sudan Airport in the sisterly Republic of the Sudan on Saturday [13 May].

The ICRC thanked Qatar for facilitating the transportation of this shipment as well as for its generous support in completing its humanitarian tasks.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that 271 persons holding Qatari residency were evacuated from the sisterly Republic of the Sudan after a fourth Qatari plane took off from Port Sudan Airport, bringing the total of those evacuated to 579 residents.

Qatar had evacuated earlier Qatari citizens present in Sudan, as well as 308 persons holding Qatari residency.

The ministry reiterated the keenness of Qatar on security and stability in the Republic of the Sudan.

View original: https://www.qatar-tribune.com/article/64285/latest-news/qatari-plane-carrying-medical-aid-provided-by-icrc-arrives-in-port-sudan

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Sudan: WHO says 600 dead, 5,000 wounded. Thousands flee to Ethiopia as fighting worsens

THE World Food Programme has warned that 19 million people, or 40% of Sudan, could face increased food insecurity as a result of the recent violence. Note that the numbers do not include South Sudan.

Read more in this report with a 5-minute video showing people who have reached the Ethiopian border. 

From Channel 4 News, UK

By Jamal Osman, Africa Correspondent

Published Wednesday 10 May 2023 - full copy:

Sudan crisis: thousands flee to Ethiopia as fighting gets worse

Fighting in Khartoum between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary RSF group shows no sign of abating despite diplomatic talks taking place in Saudi Arabia.

The World Health Organisation says the conflict has killed more than 600 people and injured at least 5,000.

The World Food Programme has also warned that 19 million people, or 40% of the country, could face increased food insecurity as a result of the recent violence.

Hundreds of thousands of people have also been forced to take refuge in neighbouring Chad, Egypt and South Sudan.

View original and video news report here: https://www.channel4.com/news/sudan-crisis-thousands-flee-to-ethiopia-as-fighting-gets-worse

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