Americans Trapped in Yemen? U.S. Says 'Good Luck'

[Purveyor]

Apr 22, 2015 6:00 AM EDT
By Josh Rogin

The announced end of Saudi Arabia’s bombing campaign in Yemen may provide a window for thousands of U.S. citizens to leave the war-torn nation. Yet the State Department shows no sign it will begin rescuing the thousands of Yemeni-Americans there, drawing ire from the Arab-American community.

For weeks, the Obama administration has maintained that using U.S. government resources to evacuate its citizens in the middle of the Yemeni crisis would be too dangerous for the U.S. personnel sent to help as well as for the citizens themselves. Without any embassy or military presence inside Yemen, U.S. assistance for the thousands of Americans seeking to leave has amounted to giving them sporadic information, wishing them good luck, and dealing with them if and when they reach another shore, usually Djibouti in Africa.

But now that the Saudi air campaign against the Houthi rebels will stop and at least a temporary cease-fire is pending, Arab-American leaders in Washington are renewing their call for the State Department to provide direct assistance to U.S. citizens trying to flee.

“We hope that with the pause in hostilities that there’s an opportunity to evacuate the U.S citizens still stuck in Yemen,” Abed Ayoub, national legal and policy director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Coalition, told me Tuesday. “Now you don’t need a cease-fire. This is the clear opportunity to save these people’s lives.”

Several other governments have arranged evacuations for their citizens, and even aided Americans trying to flee Yemen. India alone rescued 4,500 people from Yemen this month, including some Americans. Ayoub said that the Russian Federation sent out a notice to U.S. citizens in Yemen this week offering to help evacuate them on Russian ships. Desperate Yemeni-Americans are taking any offer they can get to leave.

MORE...

http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-04-22/americans-trapped-in-yemen-u-s-says-good-luck-

[Historic NY]

1. Considering the numerous warning to GTFO people remained since Feb.

http://travel.state.gov/content/travel/english/YemenCrisis.html


http://travel.state.gov/content/passports/english/alertswarnings/yemen-travel-warning.html

[karynnj]

2. Rogin would be the first to scream if a large scale effort

Were made. There almost certainly would be both soldiers and the people there killed. Though it sounds uncaring I assume they are right that setting a point to pick a large number of people up would likely get many killed. It is hard to rule out that no one notified would be someone who might intentionally or not alert the terrorists thete.

His example of the young girl being several hours away is likely not unique. How do people get to whatever points would be designated.

consider the State Department itself opted to use a Kuwait airplane for its own evacuation rather than having a us military plane fly on. This had to be done because the risk to the people meeting the plane and the military had to be less. In fact it was impressive that no one was hurt.

[Dems to Win]

3. US can rescue Saudi pilots, but not American citizens

All those US ships in the area, but they are helpless to assist the Americans in Yemen.

Pretty crazy that the US military is such a helpless giant.