(CNN) -- National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby defended the United States' decision not to evacuate US citizens from Sudan after US forces conducted a military operation extracting government personnelfrom its embassy in Khartoum Saturday.
Kirby told CNN's "This Morning" Monday the situation in Sudan "is not conducive and not safe to try to conduct some kind of a larger military evacuation of American citizens."
"Actually, the violence is increasing -- it's more dangerous today than it was just yesterday, the day before, and so, the best advice we can give to those Americans who did not abide by our warnings to leave Sudan and not to travel to Sudan is to stay sheltered in place," Kirby told CNN's Don Lemon. "We are doing what we can to help guide people who can move out to get out to potentially land convoys that are moving -- in fact, there are several dozen Americans that we know of, that are in a UN-led convoy that's making its way to Port Sudan overground."
Kirby said the US is focusing on providing unmanned aerial assets over land convoy to provide "some sort of situational awareness and overwatch" for civilians traveling to the port, while the military is stationing naval assets in the Red Sea for transportation.
He added that the Biden administration is "in touch with hundreds of American citizens that are there who may want to leave" while giving them information that they need and can rely on.
"But honestly, the fighting in Khartoum is not in a situation where we would want people moving about too freely or too aggressively," he added. "Right now, the safest thing for many Americans to do, who didn't get out when they were warned to get out, is to stay safe right now and let's see if the situation can improve."
Kirby also pushed back on the idea that all of the estimated 16,000 Americans in Sudan are seeking to evacuate the country amidst the violence.
"We don't have firm estimates of the exact number of American citizens who are in Sudan -- they don't have to register with us, they don't have to tell us that they're there," he said. "We think the vast majority of these American citizens in Sudan, and they're not all in Khartoum, are dual nationals -- these are people who grew up in Sudan, who have families, their work, their businesses there, who don't want to leave."
EAT IT, VIRGINIA restaurant news and interviews
