State Dept slams critics who seem to think it will abandon diplomats who die overseas

The State Department denied Thursday’s reporting that it shuttered an office dedicated to supporting the families of dead employees working overseas, a senior department official told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Reuters reported Thursday that the State Department was shuttering the Office of Casualty Assistance (OCA), which aids in supporting family members of deceased State Department employees in overseas missions. However, State Department officials told the DCNF that the characterization of the office “shuttering” was not accurate, and that the functions of the office will be rolled into the Bureau of Global Talent Management (GTM) and continue operating as normal.

“This assertion is unequivocally false,” the senior official exclusively told the DCNF. “The State Department continues to be fully equipped and prepared to deal with casualty evacuations and dignified transfers if there are employee deaths overseas. Post reorganization, we have about 1,000 personnel in GTM, including trained personnel who stand ready to provide these crucial, specialized, and important resources. There has been no interruption in our capabilities to carry out this mission.”

Reuters reported that the State Department was “shuttering” the organization, and that the “elimination” of the office was part of President Donald Trump’s reorganization of the federal government. However, they also added the caveat that the State Department assured the office’s functions would continue unimpeded.

“I don’t think any sitting president or any secretary of state would not want their people, their personnel – the most valuable asset of their agency – to be taken care of,” Edith Bartley, spokesperson for the families of the Americans killed in the 1998 al-Qaeda attacks on U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, told Reuters. “You want to know that your country does all that it can to take care of you, your remains and your family in the aftermath. That’s critical. That is America First.”

Reuters did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

The State Department notified its staff on July 10 that it was beginning its agency-wide layoffs, shuttering 132 offices and laying off 3,000 State Department bureaucrats. The move was made to streamline the agency and to “align with President Trump’s priorities and [the dept’s] national interests,” another senior State Department official previously told the Daily Caller.

The terminations for the OCA employees allegedly occurred on July 11, according to Reuters.

Previously, the State Department ended a program that for decades provided benefits and funds to lackluster diplomats rather than phasing them out.

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