An unknown number of American citizens remain trapped in Sudan, and it may already be too late to get them out. The civil war in Sudan between two wanna-be warlords reached the capital of Khartoum almost a week ago, and yet no one apparently had thought to extract US diplomatic personnel and private citizens from the country.

The embassy sent out an alert that it’s already too late for any normal exit:

The airport, located in central Khartoum, is closed but would be inoperable even if it reopened due to damage from bombardment and fighting. The roughly 70 U.S. staff at the embassy have no options to leave Sudan on their own without immense risk to their safety. For the most part, U.S. diplomats in Sudan are unaccompanied, meaning they do not have their family with them at what’s considered a challenging post, a State Department official said.

The American mission in the capital warned Thursday that “due to the uncertain security situation in Khartoum and closure of the airport, it is not currently safe to undertake a U.S. government-coordinated evacuation of private U.S. citizens.”

Also on Wednesday, Molly Phee, the top State Department official for African affairs, told congressional staffers that it was too late to order a departure of the mission because of the deteriorating security situation that has already led to around 300 deaths and about 3,000 more wounded, two congressional aides said.

According to the same report, travel by road would be even more dangerous. That leaves literally no options except a military rescue from Khartoum, in the middle of an urban-warfare setting between factions that have no real reason to cooperate with or even allow a US military operation.

The Pentagon has started working on that option, staging assets in Djibouti for an evac order. As the New York Times reports, though, that’s not a high-percentage option either, not for dozens of diplomatic personnel. And that’s just a drop in the bucket when it comes to the overall American risk:

The Pentagon is moving troops to the African nation of Djibouti to prepare for an evacuation of U.S. Embassy staff from Sudan, where fierce fighting between two warring generals has led to the swift deterioration of conditions in the capital, Khartoum, according to two officials.

But senior U.S. officials acknowledged that it would not be easy to get embassy staff out, let alone the estimated 19,000 American citizens who are believed to be in the country. …

Japan was the first country to announce a planned evacuation of its citizens. But announcing and actually carrying out the evacuations are two different things; the latter has proved to be elusive. Germany reportedly sent three planes, only to call off the rescue when they were en route.

It’s clearly far too late to evacuate the 19,000 American citizens. The better question is why it took this long to get the evacuation process started. It has been three weeks since signs that a power struggle between General Abdul Fattah al-Burhan and RSF chief Mohamed Hamdan Daglo had become “unstoppable,” and that war would almost certainly erupt in Khartoum:

The power struggle between Sudan’s de facto head of state General Abdul Fattah al-Burhan and his deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, chief of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) militia, has become unstoppable, threatening the overall security situation in the country, according to military and diplomatic sources.

Military and civilian analysts, as well as western diplomats, told Middle East Eye there are more and more signs of escalation amid attempts at mediation between the two sides.

Was the State Department asleep at the switch? Did it really take three weeks to catch up to the risk and start an orderly evacuation of Americans and American personnel? According to the State Department website’s Sudan page, they didn’t even address the situation publicly until April 15, after fighting had already begun in Khartoum. The only mention of embassy personnel at that time was:

We continue to remain in close touch with our Embassy in Khartoum and have full accountability of our personnel. We also have been communicating with American citizens who may be in the region about safety measures and other precautions.

That’s several days late and lots of dollars short, and no mention at all of evacuation from a war zone. Three days later, Secretary of State Antony Blinken scolded Burhan and Daglo for “recklessly endangering the Sudanese people, diplomats including U.S. personnel, and humanitarian aid workers.” When questioned by Voice of America reporter Nike Ching about any plans for evacuation, Blinken admitted that an American diplomatic convoy had taken fire in Khartoum, but still never bothered to address the idea of evacuating them from the capital.

Now, three weeks after the situation became observably dangerous and five days after Blinken and State first addressed the danger, State and the Pentagon now have evacuation plans coming together. It’s far too late for the 19,000 private citizens in Sudan, and it’s even now too late for any good-odds evac of dozens or hundreds of State Department personnel. It looks like Blinken and the Biden administration got caught with its pants down again, less than two years after the execrable failure to secure Kabul for a rational withdrawal.

Stand by for developments, and pray for everyone stuck in Khartoum — and for the men and women who will have to risk their lives to try to get Americans out long after it might have been accomplished with less risk.