“We’re looking for a boat,” says Dallia Abdelmoniem, a Sudanese person on the phone from Port Sudan, a port city on Sudan’s Red Sea coast. “To where? I don’t know, to Saudi Arabia first. Maybe the United Arab Emirates or Türkiye?”
He says ferries to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia are chaotic. As Sudanese, they stand in the back. First come the Saudis and other foreigners. Next to him is his 78-year-old mother.
Dallia left Khartoum by bus last Saturday with 24 family members. It’s a 24 hour journey. During the short breaks along the way, other Sudanese came to them with hibiscus juice and cold water.
This was their Sudan, a country where the community cared for each other, provided food and drink to each other. It is not the land of two brutal generals fighting for power, but the land of warm hearts and hospitality. He keeps asking himself how he had to leave his beloved country.
I met Dallia for the first time on a Sunday ten days ago. It was the second day of the conflict. From his family’s home in the capital, Khartoum, I could hear explosions and shelling on the phone. “My windows are shaking, we need to get to the middle of the house,” she said.
His city had suddenly turned into a battlefield, and he was sitting in the front row. Their home is located in the Al Almarat district near the airport, which is one of the main battlegrounds between the paramilitary RSF group and the regular army. For the first few days, they thought they could sit outside and take shelter in their home. But then a rocket hit. It landed just above the bedroom.
There was no other choice: you had to go. They made their first unsuccessful escape attempt. While outside, a rocket hit the house next door and they had to go back inside. A second flight attempt was successful. First, they went to their relatives in another part of the city. It wasn’t safe there either.
That weekend they decided to chart a course towards Port Sudan. Normally it was a journey of about thirteen hours, but now they were 24 hours away. They did not use all the main roads to avoid as many army and RSF barricades as possible. They encountered army checkpoints but were allowed to pass.
Most people from Khartoum travel to Egypt, not Port Sudan. Dallia feared that the route would be too long and overcrowded. “We have a lot of children with us. This seemed like the best option to us. But now that we are here, we understand that traveling and leaving the country is not easy. We Sudanese have the lowest priority here, take a boat to come.”
Port Sudan is also a destination for foreigners, especially from Gulf countries. It’s unclear how many have left, but a stream has begun. Information about bus drivers is shared on social media.
Gas and bus ticket prices have skyrocketed, and cash is hard to come by as banks are closed. For example, a trip to Egypt or Port Sudan is therefore reserved only for wealthier Sudanese.
Things are calming down in central Khartoum, according to Dallia. “Many Sudanese who cannot leave the country are trying to leave the city, go to relatives elsewhere in the country, or to a less-conflict suburb of Khartoum,” he says.
A local journalist in Khartoum, who did not want to be named, says his family is too big to move. “For the cost, we’d better stay here. Even if the prices here go up too. I think we can hold out for a month.”
Running out of water and food
However, fears remain that once the city empties and the diplomats leave, the conflict will spread further and the generals will not back down. There is a great fear of humanitarian crisis in Khartoum because water and food are becoming scarce and there is almost no medical assistance left.
“The civilians don’t care,” Dallia sighs. “I don’t know how to move forward and where to go. Leaving the citizens behind feels uncertain, but I am responsible for my mother, whose safety I want to keep. When will we be able to come back and what will happen to us.” My childhood home is over, I don’t know.”
Source: NOS
Karen Clayton is a seasoned journalist and author at The Nation Update, with a focus on world news and current events. She has a background in international relations, which gives her a deep understanding of the political, economic and social factors that shape the global landscape. She writes about a wide range of topics, including conflicts, political upheavals, and economic trends, as well as humanitarian crisis and human rights issues.
