The first day of the evacuation was reasonably orderly with time to process over 900 persons for the evacuation. All passengers signed paperwork that included their passport numbers, address in Sierra Leone and the location where they wanted to ultimately arrive. The paperwork also included a statement that they would reimburse the U.S. government for the costs of their passage to the de-embarkation evacuation site which turned out to be Guinea, the country next to Sierra Leon
As they boarded the helicopters that would fly them to the U.S. Navy ship USS Kearsarge, passengers wore helmets and only 50 passengers were put on each helicopter that flew them out to the ship. After evacuating all US citizens, diplomats, former government officials and US Embassy diplomatic and local staff who had arrived at the hotel, over 900 from a crowd of several thousand, I was on the last helicopter to leave the hotel.
We knew there were several U.S. citizens who decided not to leave, including the manager of the hotel from which we were conducting the evacuation and members of several diplomatic missions who said they would remain open and ride out the coup, which was the third coup in the previous five years.
After we got 900 persons aboard, the USS Kearsarge left Sierra Leonean waters and headed on the overnight voyage to Conakry, Guinea. Several U.S. Embassy consular officers from U.S. Embassies in surrounding countries had been flown to the USS Kearsarge to help with further processing of evacuees. As we got into helicopter range of Conakry, we began flying groups off the ship. First to fly off was our Embassy consular and administrative staff, both US and local staff, to help US Embassy Conakry with booking passage for persons on commercial or chartered aircraft that would take them out of Guinea to family or friends in West Africa or Europe.
As we were beginning that movement, I got a call from the State Department in Washington with information that several US citizens had arrived at the hotel from arduous and dangerous trips from the countryside after our last helicopter had flown out. The State Department and Defense Department had decided that the USS Kearsarge would return to Freetown to pick up more evacuees, including young Sierra Leonean children from an orphanage that was operated by a U.S. citizen. We were told that all those who wanted to be evacuated were already at the hotel.
The captain of the USS Kearsarge and I discussed the capacity of the ship for more evacuees and how many helicopter flights we needed to offload sufficient people to Conakry, Guinea to make room for the next group of evacuees. We kept steaming toward Conakry to get the helicopters within range and began sending helicopters filled with evacuees into Conakry. Then we turned and headed back to Freetown.
The orphans had arrived at the evacuation hotel with their U.S. citizen sponsor and several staff. The orphans had no birth certificates, no identification other than the names they were called as the sponsor said there was no time to collect any paperwork. I was very uneasy about taking them to another country, especially since several of them appeared to be sick and might have a difficult time with the stress and lack of medical care for days upon arriving in Guinea, but the Assistant Secretary of Consular Affairs personally assured me that the US government would work with the Government of Guinea to let the orphans in without documentation.
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