State Department Dealing with ‘Security Challenges’ in Yemen with American Citizens Still There
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PeterHermesFurian/iStock/Thinkstock(SANA’A, Yemen) — While the U.S. Embassy in Yemen suspended operations and removed its staff earlier this year, some Americans remain stuck in Yemen, with limited means of leaving.
State Department spokesperson Marie Harf said on Monday that the department had sent 27 security messages and travel warnings since January 2014, warning Americans to defer travel to Yemen or to leave the country if they were already there. Still, the U.S. government has said it does not intend to run evacuation missions for those Americans still in the country.
“We’ve been warning Americans for a very long time not to go to Yemen,” Harf said at Monday’s press briefing. “We are currently also warning them that the safest thing to do might be to shelter in place.”
“There are security challenges here with trying to use American assets to do this, and those are the kinds of factors we consider.”
Some Americans — about 140 in total — have been able to get on boats dispatched by other nations and made it safely to Djibouti, the State Department says. Those Americans are receiving “full consular service.” The department also expects more Americans to make it to Djibouti.
Asked whether the State Department felt it was no longer obligated to help protect American citizens abroad, Harf said that “there are factors you have to take into account when you determine whether an American asset should be sent to a country, and this has been our determination about what’s safest right now.”
She was further pressed, asked whether the department had to decide whether “the people are actually worth saving.”
Harf called that idea “an absolutely offensive assertion,” saying that one concern the department has is that if a group of Americans gather in one place — say, for an evacuation mission — they could become a target for violence.
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