In Manja Kliese’s office there is still a blue camping air mattress in the corner, on it a pillow and a colorful blanket, a blue sports bag. The 45-year-old diplomat works in the “cellar,” which is to be understood literally, but in the Foreign Office is synonymous with the crisis response center that she heads – it’s in the basement of the building on Werderscher Markt in Berlin-Mitte. On the Saturday of the week before last, her cell phone rang while she was jogging. She already knows what’s going on. Before heading into the weekend, she had asked colleagues in the 24-hour department to keep an eye on Sudan. Talks there about a political transition had collapsed, and the rhetoric of the rival generals was harsh.
That’s the job of the Crisis Response Center: observing developments, recognizing aggravations, convening and organizing a crisis team. The Federal Foreign Office also coordinates cooperation with the other departments of the Federal Government and international partners.
First advice: stay at home or another safe place
What follows in Sudan is an explosion of violence, with heavy fighting in the capital Khartoum and elsewhere that few saw coming. The only thing the Federal Foreign Office can advise the members of the embassy and the German nationals in Sudan in the extremely confusing and dangerous situation is to stay at home or in another safe place. Outside, mortar shells detonate, fighter jets curve low over the city, looters roam the streets.
Kliese and her colleagues are trying to get an overview, phoning colleagues from EU countries and other friendly states such as the USA. The crisis team, in which the Federal Ministry of Defense is also represented, will meet for the first time on Saturday.
The real mission then went a bit like an exercise, says Kliese. “If we train our processes, the scenarios are enriched with ever new difficulties.” In addition to the battles in the distant country, where there is rarely a clear front, the power soon goes out and communication becomes increasingly difficult. After a few days, many people run out of supplies and drinking water becomes very scarce.
Geographically, the Nile cuts Khartoum in two, but the three central bridges across the river were closed and contested. Wherever a collection point is set up, an evacuation can start – some of those affected always have to cross the river. In the Berlin Crisis Response Center, maps are hanging on the wall, on which the scenes of battles are marked. In between, desks are packed tightly with screens so that the employees can work on demand.
Heavily armed units of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces are on the move in and around Khartoum. The power struggle continues.
(Photo: -/AFP)
The crisis management team tries to establish and maintain contact with the Germans by e-mail, which seems a bit old-fashioned called “compatriot letter”, by SMS with automated calls and a number of telephone operators. When the fighting broke out, just 50 registered on the crisis prevention list, the number quickly rose to 150, and last weekend it exceeded 300, and individual people are still registering. Volunteers from the Foreign Office join the Crisis Response Center staff to do the work. At most, Manja Kliese sleeps on the floor in her office.
The Bundeswehr flies elite soldiers to the region
The pressure on the crisis management team to act increases every day, but the options are dwindling. The first hope for a quick evacuation via the international airport is dashed. Three A400M-Bundeswehr transport planes have to abort the mission after a refueling stop in Greece; the announced ceasefire does not last.
At that point, at the latest, it becomes clear that there is also a “robust” version of a rescue mission. Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Defense Minister Boris Pistorius are now chairing the meetings of the crisis management team, and the Bundeswehr is relocating elite soldiers from the Special Forces Command (KSK) and armored vehicles to Jordan. They could get the Germans out, for whom the federal government has a statutory duty of care.
The fact that things turned out differently is thanks to international pressure, especially from the USA and the holidays at the end of the Muslim month of fasting, Ramadan. An agreement with the Sudanese army makes it possible to use a military airfield north of Khartoum. The French land there on Sunday night, the Germans fly there for the first time in the afternoon.
Instead of tips on water treatment, the crisis team can now send directions. In order to avoid the contested Nile bridges, people have to make detours. The routes to the army airfield are 60 to 100 kilometers long, depending on where the people live in Khartoum. Italy and France are putting together convoys that start from their embassies. They also take Germans with them. One of the columns comes under fire.
30 km walk in 40 degrees in the shade
Because it is not clear how long it will be before the fighting flares up again, the federal government is advising Germans to make their way to the airport individually. The first few kilometers are the most dangerous, and the fear of leaving the apartment is great. Some let their caretaker drive them, the cars have to stay behind anyway. One comes by bike, two others walk 30 kilometers in temperatures of around 40 degrees. Dehydrated, but unharmed, the German nationals reach the plane.
The Bundeswehr brought 720 people with six flights from Khartoum to the Jordanian air base al-Azraq by Tuesday evening, including almost 200 German nationals, their family members from Sudan and citizens of 40 other countries. Among them are 22 Jordanians, more than 100 Canadians and more than 40 people from the Netherlands.
While the Bundestag wants to decide on the mandate for the mission in the afternoon, the Bundeswehr is already halting flights again, and routine operations are slowly returning to the crisis cellar of the Federal Foreign Office.
Many people from Sudan flee by boat to Saudi Arabia, where a ship arrives in Jeddah with 1,687 civilians, including nationals from more than 50 countries.
(Photo: AMER HILABI/AFP)
Germans are still traveling with a UN convoy overland the approximately 800 kilometers from Khartoum to Port Sudan, from where they are to be taken out of the country. Two Germans who came to Sudan to dive in the Red Sea make it on their own to board a ship that will take them to Saudi Arabia. The kingdom is sending 1,700 people to Jeddah, a route that the estimated 20 or so Germans in the UN convoy could also take.
Germans from other parts of the country can try to get to safety across the border to Egypt or Ethiopia; They are supported by the Foreign Office with consular assistance, while the Bundeswehr is mandated to deploy up to 1,600 soldiers by the end of May – an option that the crisis team hopes the federal government will not have to pull.