US, France admit to cancelling passports of Sudanese visa applicants

Washington and Paris have admitted that their diplomats destroyed the passports of Sudanese citizens who had applied for visas, leaving them stranded in the conflict-torn country, The Telegraph (UK) reported on May 21.

France and the US say their diplomats were simply following “standard procedures” to prevent sensitive documents from falling into the wrong hands. But that explanation has failed to assuage the anger of Sudanese citizens now trapped in the war zone.

“I can hear the warplanes and bombs from my window, I am trapped here with no way out,” Selma Ali, an engineer who handed in her passport to the US Embassy three days before fighting broke out in Sudan, told the New York Times, which first reported that such documents were shredded for destruction.

When fighting broke out on April 15 between the Sudanese army (SAF) loyal to General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the powerful paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, foreign diplomats caught in the crossfire rushed to flee Khartoum.

The hasty evacuation of embassies saw diplomatic staff from many countries – including Britain – leave behind passports that had been submitted for visa applications.

But aside from the US and France, most other countries have not destroyed passports. Instead, they have stored them in locked vaults inside closed embassies—making them inaccessible to outsiders, but not making the documents disappear forever.

World - US, France admit to canceling passports of Sudanese visa applicants — US Embassy in Khartoum, Sudan. Photo: BL Harbert International

Neither government has said publicly how many documents have been left behind or destroyed. The British government has pledged that any documents left at its facilities in Sudan will be “securely stored”.

“We recognise that this is an incredibly difficult situation. We will continue to monitor the situation closely and the UK Government is working to identify solutions for those affected,” a spokesperson for the UK Foreign Office (FCDO) said last month.

But a US State Department spokesman argued that it was “standard operating procedure” to destroy documents “that could fall into the wrong hands and be misused”.

“Because the security environment did not allow us to safely return those passports, we followed our procedures to destroy them rather than leave them unsecured,” the US spokesperson said.

The US has previously faced criticism after admitting it destroyed the passports of Afghans left at the US embassy in Kabul when the Taliban took over the South Asian nation in 2021.

At that point, Afghans who have lost their passports could at least apply for new ones from the new Taliban-led government. But that option is not available in Sudan, where the East African country’s passport office is closed due to ongoing fighting in the capital Khartoum despite ceasefires .

Minh Duc (According to The Telegraph, NY Times)

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