Envoys Shred Passports, Stranding Sudanese
In the frantic days before American diplomats evacuated their embassy in Khartoum under darkness by helicopter last month, one 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 might fall into the wrong hands destroyed them.
More than a month later, many 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.”
Many other countries also stranded Sudanese visa applicants when their diplomats evacuated, a source of 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.
The U.S. State Department confirmed it had destroyed passports. “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.
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 outside Khartoum, praying for their safety. “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.”
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.
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
They applied for visas. Now they are stuck in a war zone.
military and the Rapid Support Forces, a powerful paramilitary group, quickly spiraled into a full-blown war.
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. Armed U.S. drones watched over buses carrying Americans as they traveled to Port Sudan, about 845 kilometers.
Mahir Elfiel, a development worker marooned in Wadi Halfa, near Egypt, said the Spanish Embassy hadn’t responded to emails about his passport.
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 passport was 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,” he said. “I’m just waiting.”