Compensation for Embassy Bombing Victims Could Imperil Thaw With Sudan

Mr. Khaliq and Ms. Oport are among hundreds of victims and family members at the center of a yearslong process to remove Sudan from a U.S. government list of state sponsors of terrorism. Doing so will open the way for the East African country to move toward economic stability, and potentially greater democracy, after a generation of oppression.

Yet the payment disparity between victims who were Americans at the time of the bombings and those who were not has delayed — and could derail — the deal. It has divided Congress and created a rift between the victims and their lawyers as the United States grapples with how to correct unequal or discriminatory standards in its legal system.

“It’s cold — why would they even think of compensating the Kenyans at a lesser percentage than the Americans?” said Ms. Oport, who worked at the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi, Kenya’s capital, for 15 years before she immigrated to the United States in 2002 and became a citizen in 2010.

“I can only say it’s discrimination,” she added.

She called the international employees at American embassies abroad the “backbone” of the missions by keeping operations running and recounted returning to work a few days after the blasts to pick through the rubble for documents that would have been lost. “The recognition of equality is very important,” she said.