State Department evacuating American citizens from Egypt
As of Monday, the State Department has begun chartering flights to evacuate all American citizens from Egypt who want to leave, speeding them off to safe haven locations in Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus. "State Department personnel at our Embassy in Cairo and here in the United States are working round-the-clock to ensure the safety our ...
As of Monday, the State Department has begun chartering flights to evacuate all American citizens from Egypt who want to leave, speeding them off to safe haven locations in Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus.
As of Monday, the State Department has begun chartering flights to evacuate all American citizens from Egypt who want to leave, speeding them off to safe haven locations in Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus.
"State Department personnel at our Embassy in Cairo and here in the United States are working round-the-clock to ensure the safety our Americans," said Janice Jacobs, assistant secretary of State for consular affairs, in announcing the evacuation assistance Sunday.
U.S. citizens and their immediate family members can go to the Cairo airport and proceed to HAJ Terminal 4 to board a U.S. government chartered plane out of Egypt. If U.S. citizens have their passports, they can go straight to the airport without calling ahead. For those who don’t have the proper documents on them, they can seek help by writing to EgyptEmergencyUSC@state.gov or by calling 1-202-501-4444.
"We are aware that not all U.S. citizens have internet or cell phone service in Egypt… Because of communications interruptions, we ask that family and friends in the United States assist us by relaying information to their loved ones in Egypt directly," Jacobs said, also directing people to check for updates at www.travel.state.gov.
The State Department is rushing extra teams of consular personnel to the Cairo embassy as well as to the cities of Athens, Istanbul, and Nicosia, where U.S. consular officials will help travelers move on to their next destinations. Travelers don’t have to pay for a ticket out of Cairo, but the U.S. government will expect them to pay back the money later, and Uncle Sam won’t pay for any tickets home to the United States.
The safe haven cities could change, a State Department advisory warned, and travelers can’t choose which city they will be flown to. U.S. citizen children can be accompanied by one non-citizen parent. And sorry, no pets allowed.
The flights started on Monday at 11:00 AM Cairo time, but already the State Department is expecting to be overwhelmed.
"U.S. citizens seeking evacuation should be prepared for a substantial wait at the airport," the State Department advisory said. "Travelers are advised to bring food, water, diapers and other necessary toiletries with them to the airport."
Josh Rogin covers national security and foreign policy and writes the daily Web column The Cable. His column appears bi-weekly in the print edition of The Washington Post. He can be reached for comments or tips at josh.rogin@foreignpolicy.com.
Previously, Josh covered defense and foreign policy as a staff writer for Congressional Quarterly, writing extensively on Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, U.S.-Asia relations, defense budgeting and appropriations, and the defense lobbying and contracting industries. Prior to that, he covered military modernization, cyber warfare, space, and missile defense for Federal Computer Week Magazine. He has also served as Pentagon Staff Reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's leading daily newspaper, in its Washington, D.C., bureau, where he reported on U.S.-Japan relations, Chinese military modernization, the North Korean nuclear crisis, and more.
A graduate of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, Josh lived in Yokohama, Japan, and studied at Tokyo's Sophia University. He speaks conversational Japanese and has reported from the region. He has also worked at the House International Relations Committee, the Embassy of Japan, and the Brookings Institution.
Josh's reporting has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, CBS, ABC, NPR, WTOP, and several other outlets. He was a 2008-2009 National Press Foundation's Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellow, 2009 military reporting fellow with the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and the 2011 recipient of the InterAction Award for Excellence in International Reporting. He hails from Philadelphia and lives in Washington, D.C. Twitter: @joshrogin
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