Local banks had been closed for some time and the embassy was unable to pay the FSNs. The Ambassador left the FSNs with keys to the commissary and warehouse on the embassy compound and they were permitted to take anything they needed. Return to Oman A total of 281 evacuees were taken from the embassy, including 12 heads of missions (eight ambassadors and four chargés d'affaires) and 61 Americans (including Ambassador Bishop and 36 embassy staff). A 282nd evacuee was added to the total with a 10 January Caesarean delivery of a baby aboard Guam. The heads of mission were the ambassadors of the United States, Kenya, Nigeria, Soviet Union, Sudan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and United Kingdom and the chargés of the embassies of Germany, Kuwait, Oman, and Qatar. Rather than disembark in nearby Mombasa, as originally thought by the evacuees, the ships were ordered back to Oman—a five-day journey. The sailors and marines made way for the evacuees to share living quarters. When the chaplain of Guam asked crew to sign up as guides for the evacuees while aboard the vessel, two hundred signed up within an hour, and some of the sailors even dressed up as clowns to ease the ordeal for children. At the request of the ambassadors, a formal session with the ships' senior officers was held to express their thanks. On 11 January, the evacuees were offloaded at Muscat, Oman. That afternoon, the American evacuees were flown to Frankfurt, Germany, from where they continued home. See also List of military operations Military operations other than war (MOOTW) Notes References Notes about references: For PDF files, the reference page is the page number appearing on the document, not the page number in the PDF file. Except the introduction, the article Evacuating Somalia is a verbatim excerpt, with some short omissions (denoted by ellipses) from pages 94–104 the document Ambassador James K. Bishop, Jr. (both were published by the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training). 1991 in Somalia Somalia–United States relations Non-combat military operations involving the United States United States Marine Corps in the 20th century Military expeditions of the United States Non-combatant evacuation operations