The US military is weighing its options for evacuating the US embassy in Sudan, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Friday, as the Biden administration considers removing personnel from the capital Khartoum because of the crisis.

“We have deployed some forces in the area to ensure we have as many options as possible if we are called upon to do something. And we still haven’t been asked to do anything,” Austin said at a news conference at Ramstein Air Base in Germany. “Nothing has been decided,” he added.

At least 413 people have been killed during heavy clashes that began over the weekend between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), General Mohamed Hamdan Daglo (or “Hameti”) and troops under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan who rules the Sudan after the 2021 coup.

The UN warns that hostilities are leading the country, which relies on food aid, to a “humanitarian catastrophe”.

National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said President Joe Biden approved a plan to deploy military forces to the region, ready to assist in an operation to evacuate American diplomats if necessary.

Although the warring sides in Sudan have agreed to a three-day ceasefire, the situation remains unsettled.

The US, Japan, South Korea, Germany and Spain have failed to remove their diplomatic staff from Sudan.

Cameron Hudson, an expert on US policy on Africa at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and former head of the African affairs division at the National Security Council, stressed that the escalation of violence in Khartoum makes an evacuation operation unforeseeable.

Washington has made it clear that American private citizens in Sudan should not count on a US government-coordinated evacuation operation. Vedant Patel, a State Department spokesman, said the US State Department was in contact with several hundred US citizens in Sudan. Yesterday Friday, the State Department confirmed the death of an American in the African country.

The UN is making efforts to remove its staff

The United Nations and several foreign governments are also considering plans to remove personnel and civilians. The UN is making efforts to remove personnel from “highly dangerous” areas in Sudan and move them to safer locations, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, Abdu Dieng, said on Thursday.

The United Nations maintains approximately 4,000 staff in Sudan, of which 800 are foreign nationals. It is estimated that there are more than 6,000 family members of UN staff in Sudan.

Switzerland announced on Friday that it is considering plans to remove its citizens from Sudan. Sweden intends to “as soon as possible” evacuate its embassy and remove its staff and their families. A Spanish air force aircraft is awaiting the green light to evacuate around 60 Spaniards from Khartoum. South Korea has sent a military aircraft to a US base in Djibouti to be ready to evacuate its citizens as soon as possible.