The US State Department has Evacuated 11 American Embassies in 3 Years
Over the last three years, 11 United States embassies have reportedly been partially or fully evacuated by the U.S. State Department, a record-breaking number attributed to growing global instability.
Last week, a special unit with the U.S. Marines was sent to Haiti to secure and evacuate all non-emergency personnel from the U.S. Embassy following widespread gang violence across the nation and the resignation of the country’s Prime Minister.
Earlier this month, armed gangs facilitated a jailbreak, releasing more than 4,500 criminals and gang leaders, and the United Nations has said that the country’s health system is “on the brink of collapse.” The U.N. additionally said that businesses as well as schools have been closed, and children are “increasingly used by gangs.”
The U.S. embassy, located in Haiti’s capital city, Port-au-Prince, said that “Heightened gang violence in the neighborhood near U.S. Embassy compounds and near the airport led to the State Department’s decision to arrange for the departure of additional embassy personnel.” The U.S. additionally advised American citizens in the country to “depart Haiti as soon as possible by commercial or other privately available transportation options.”
This marks the 11th U.S. embassy that has been partially or entirely evacuated since 2021. The embassies have been vacated using authorized or ordered departure directives, which are most often used to permit or require embassy employees and their eligible family members to leave their post in “advance of normal rotation when U.S. national interests or imminent threat to life requires it,” according to the State Department.
Former President Barack Obama oversaw the second-highest number of U.S. embassy evacuations during his eight years in office, according to the Daily Signal. Under his administration, U.S. embassies in Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, South Sudan, Libya, Syria, and the Central African Republic were partially or fully evacuated.
In 2021, the U.S. State Department ordered the evacuation of the embassy in Burma, also known as Myanmar, following a military coup that threatened the safety of embassy personnel. Chad was ordered to “shelter in place” shortly after but was later evacuated. One of the more infamous embassy evacuations occurred in July of 2021 when the U.S. was hastily pulling military personnel out of Afghanistan, resulting in the deaths of 13 service members who were assisting in the mass exodus and were killed by a terrorist bombing. 150 Afghan civilians were also killed in the attack.
The Daily Signal reported that images from the evacuation “evoked painful memories of the botched 1975 evacuation of the U.S. Embassy in the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon.”
Embassies in Ethiopia, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Nigeria, Sudan, Niger, and Haiti have also been evacuated since 2021.
