Why The FCDO Policy on Sudan Evacuation Options Makes Perfect Sense

 

The evacuation of civilians from a hostile warzone, sometimes referred to as a ‘Non Combatant Evacuation Operation’ (NEO) must rank as one of the most difficult and dangerous operations a modern military can undertake. It requires entering a potentially hostile conflict zone as a third party to try to find and evacuate people entitled to your support. It is difficult, dangerous and incredibly complicated to deliver. It is therefore unsurprising but tediously depressing to see commentators round on the FCDO for its perceived failings in Sudan, where conflict in the capital Khartoum threatens stability.

Media coverage in the UK has focused on the decision to evacuate FCDO diplomats and their families while leaving the roughly 4000 UK Entitled Persons (UKEP) in place pending a further decision on their extraction. At the time of writing this article, no formal decision has been taken to evacuate them. There is criticism that the UK has abandoned its own nationals while others are stepping up. This author firmly believes such criticism is unwarranted and unfair and that the FCDO is executing a very sensible approach to this crisis. Why is that the case?

The decision to evacuate diplomats was based on highly credible information that suggested that the civil conflict in Khartoum may target Western diplomats. The British Embassy, and many others, are located in the centre of town in compounds near a variety of government ministries and other sensitive sites. These locations are well known and in a crisis it would be entirely possible for the sites to be stormed, attacked and looted, with diplomats and civilians taken hostage or killed.

These individuals were clearly at risk due to their location and the risk of deterioration in the situation. Their locations would have been clearly known and evacuation plans in place to marshal them as a small group and move them to the extraction point. The operation to do so seems to have been conducted in a textbook manner with the small UK diplomatic core evacuated out quickly and safely, at the same time as other western officials.

Some will ask why didn’t a small rump stay behind to work on? Tempting as it is to imagine a brave ambassador sending cables as the baying hordes break their doors down, this is not remotely sensible. The withdrawal of wider western embassies would mean that the UK would have been in near isolation, an easy target for retribution and without resources to protect the site. Putting troops on the ground would not have worked either – from a practical perspective sending armed  troops to take up residence to protect the site means taking a side in a very violent conflict. It also means supporting them, which in turn requires access to an airport, vehicle convoys and a steady flow of UK ground and air forces entering the airspace to provide logistics, food, fuel and ammunition. Either the UK gets sucked into a ground conflict, which it will quickly lose, or the small UK detachment would be cut off and probably overrun. Either way there is no good outcome in this scenario.

Why then has the government decided not to evacuate other UKEP? There are several very compelling reasons for this decision. Firstly Sudan is an extremely large country – it is the 15^th largest country on earth at roughly 1.9million km² in size – roughly 8 times larger than the UK, which is roughly 242,000km² . This is an incredibly large and very remote country with poor national infrastructure at the best of times.

There are believed to be around 4000 UK passport holders, a mixture of UK nationals and dual nationals in country, but they will be spread across it. The FCDO will know, based on the information received from them, where they are located and where they live. It is entirely possible that the vast majority of them live away from Khartoum, where the fighting is occurring, and as such are at relatively little immediate risk. The main port of evacuation is Port Sudan, which is approximately 850km away from Khartoum – this is roughly the equivalent of travelling from London to Fort William in Scotland. From Nyala, the 4^th largest city, located in the west of the country to Port Sudan is an over 2000km drive – roughly the equivalent of driving from London to Minsk in Belarus. This is an extremely large nation.

There is no realistic means of sending British troops to individual locations to collect people, and to ask them to evacuate means getting people to leave their homes and potentially travel thousands of kilometres across open desert to reach an uncertain destination, while law and order is beginning to break down. There is no guarantee that they will find petrol, water or food and the other life giving requirements, and no certainty that they could make it to the evacuation point in time. Many of the people who are UK passport holders are also very elderly, the media is reporting on some in their 80s. Asking these people to travel is potentially putting their health and safety at extreme risk, with no certainty of safety at the other end. This does not seem a sensible outcome for everyone and could result in numerous fatalities. Given that many passport holders will be living in areas of relative safety and security, asking them to abandon their homes and travel at great personal risk is not necessarily the best policy plan – it may impress the media that ‘something is being done’, but these voices will soon change as it becomes clear how many have been killed or injured enroute.

If the decision is taken to evacuate then this is still a highly risky option. Other nations have been able to evacuate their nationals due to there being a relatively small diaspora who are located close to each other. When dealing with a widely dispersed population, not only does this become harder, but you also need a bigger footprint to evacuate them from. This in turn calls for a port or airport to be held for a sustained period by the military, who in turn will need support and protection should the situation turn violent. To provide sufficient shelter and accommodation for up to 4000 people being moved out by aircraft or ship will call for a large logistics effort, and in turn a strong force protection presence. There is a risk that as the camp is established that others not entitled to be evacuated will also try to enter it, posing security challenges while bonafides are established. This is all achievable but will require major international cooperation to deliver – and this is predicated on the assumption that the warring parties do not turn on the British forces flying in or sailing out, potentially trying to shoot down aircraft on the way.

The reason the UK policy as currently being carried out makes sense is that trying to herd 4000 UK passport holders into a single zone, travelling across a country potentially collapsing into civil war to get there and placing themselves at huge personal risk in the process is not necessarily a good idea. It creates an easy target for attacks and potentially increases the possibility of a mass casualty event. Be in n0 doubt that opposed NEO’s are some of the most highly risky operations that armed forces can carry out and will almost certainly result in casualties. Given all of this the FCDO advice to essentially ‘wait out, make your personal decision’ seems extremely sensible. People should make their call based on their personal circumstances and while they may want to be evacuated, the actual risk to them in their location may be extremely small. Sometimes the best thing to do is actually to do nothing at all.

The FCDO has also come under fire for its perceived poor communications, which is also rather unfair. Trying to maintain contact with a widely dispersed population that may or may not have mobile phone and internet access is hard. Providing updates is also challenging because the situation is so volatile and hard to determine what is going on – the FCDO is many wonderful things, but it is not omnipotent. It also has to be mindful that peoples lives may be at risk if it gives the wrong advice to move, and if and when the time comes to do an evacuation, it needs to be certain of the location that is being used. Moving people around the country on the whim of an email or text message isn’t fair on them – again, silence can be stressful but its better to not get hopes up or put people at risk until the time is right to evacuate them.

In a similar vein the Ambassador has come under attack for being on holiday and not at his desk. It may come as a surprise to some to learn that Civil Servants are entitled to time off and they are entitled to return to the UK on leave. In this case the Ambassadors leave has coincided with Ramadan, a period of time that anyone familiar with doing business in Islamic nations will know is traditionally a period of very low official activity. It is the equivalent of the ‘tweenmass’ in the UK (26^th Dec to 1 Jan) when all but essential government and civil activity ceases. It is the ideal time to take leave and then return to Post when normal activity resumes.

On the outbreak of the crisis the Ambassador immediately returned from leave to the FCDO main office in London (unlike a recent former Foreign Secretary who remained on leave during the Kabul evacuation). This makes perfect sense as the FCDO crisis hub in London is well placed to handle crisis comms, coordination of joint military planning and is close to both MOD and the COBR facilities of the Cabinet Office. If you’re not in Post, it’s the next best place to be and frankly given the potential challenges in keeping comms up with Post, its arguably been a better place as the Ambassador can stay in touch.

Its likely some people will be rustling their papers angrily and demanding that he should have returned to Khartoum when the crisis hit – this would have been difficult given the closure of the main airport, and frankly in a rapidly evolving crisis, is it better to keep your ‘man in Khartoum’ in the office, or stuck in some airport transit facility without any means of getting to Post?

This is a rapidly evolving situation with decisions changing by the hour. But the key thing that the author strongly believes here is that the FCDO policy is pragmatic, sensible and is the right outcome for the UK passport holders in country. It is not easy to evacuate the population of a small village by herding them together across one of the largest nations on earth and then getting them to a specific location while civil war breaks out. We need to be realistic on what can be delivered and accept that things don’t always go the way that Hollywood would have it happen. What matters is that the people in country are safe, and that the advice offered by the UK helps them make decisions that keep them safe. Right now that advice to consider their position is the best advice as they can decide for themselves, not try to flee across country in what could become a truly awful experience. Sometimes the best thing to do is do nothing at all.