Man flees Sudan war

A MAN from Caversham has had to flee his native Sudan due to the civil war there.

Mohamed Ibrahim, of Riverside Court, was supposed to leave Khartoum tomorrow (Saturday) to attend his son’s graduation next week.

But when fighting broke out between the army and paramilitary forces flights were suspended and he was stuck.

The 60-year-old accountant was forced to travel by bus for more than 24 hours to the border with Egypt, which he hopes to cross then catch a flight back to the UK from Cairo.

Fighting erupted in Khartoum, the capital city, after clashes between a paramilitary force called the Rapid Support Forces and the national army. Shooting began on April 15 after members of the RSF were deployed around the country, which the army saw as a threat.

Since then, thousands of people have made the long and expensive journey to the border with Egypt.

Mr Ibrahim’s wife, Sara El-Nager, 52, is in Caversham waiting for him and says she feels “helpless”.

The freelance cultural researcher, who has a Sudanese father and English mother, said: “Mohamed called me on the morning of April 15 and said he could hear gunfire around the city which got increasingly worse from then.

“It wasn’t just bullets and normal weapons but also shelling from planes and heavy artillery.

“A couple days after the fighting broke out, he told me it was really intense. You could hear air strikes, fighter jets and people firing and it was really scary.

“No one ventured out of their houses. Nothing has happened in our neighbourhood and there’s no damage but my sister-in-law had a bullet through her sitting room window and another relative had a mortar shell land in their flat.

“It was really scary and really emotionally draining trying to find out what was going on. I was calling relatives, looking on social media, which is where a lot of news is, but it’s really hard to verify what’s real and not.

“It is really tense and chaotic. Sudan TV, the official broadcasting corporation, went off air and the radio was cut off so there was no state media to tell us what was going on and a lot of propaganda.

“We have to rely on foreign media and there are a lot of Arab networks with people doing live coverage on their phones.

“We have been able to stay in touch via WhatsApp but it is gradually more and more difficult to communicate.

“Everything is shut, there are no banks and, in the shops, it is hard to get credit because most people use pay-as-you-go phones and their credit runs out.

“There are three main networks in Sudan and fortunately Mohamed’s stayed on until he left Khartoum but now it varies. It seems like the networks are back but no one can get credit.

“Initially, he thought it would be fine to stay there and wait it out. Our house has a basement so when there is shelling, we go downstairs.

“His sisters’ and family’s houses are just behind the airport and military headquarters, so pretty much the epicentre of fighting. They came out our house for five days and that was when they all decided to make the journey to Argeen.”

On Monday, the bus driver came to pick up Mr Ibrahim, two of his sisters, his niece, two of his cousins and other family and friends to take them to the border.

They had to take a longer route in order to avoid RSF checkpoints.

Mrs Al-Nageen said: “The RSF are quite unruly and you don’t know if they could attack, or they could be targeted by army shelling, so they don’t want to be anywhere near those checkpoints.”

Mr Ibrahim reached Dongola at night and slept in a string bed without a mattress in a rented room, using his carry-on bag as a pillow.  

He is currently waiting to get into Aswan in Egypt from where he will travel to Cairo.

Mrs El-Nager said he expected to be waiting for at least 11 hours due to the volume of people queuing to cross the border.

She said: “It has been pretty tiring for him. There is a checkpoint before Aswan and everyone has to go through this.

“While he is waiting there, I feel reassured because he is out of the fighting and shelling and with other people he knows.

“The problem is facilities and making sure he has enough water. It’s not going to be nice but at least he’s on his way.

“I tried to call him on Tuesday but there was no signal. Communication has haltered as the networks have started to fail and the coverage in the north is really bad but I presume he didn’t sleep well.”

The couple married and lived in Sudan, sending their children to school there. Around 20 years ago, they bought their house in Caversham and since then have split their time between the two countries.

Their son, Yasin, 23, is studying for his doctorate at Kellogg College, Oxford, and their daughter, Alia, 20, is studying at Durham University.

The last time Mrs El-Nager was in Sudan was in January and she doesn’t know when she will be able to return.

She said: “It will be good when Mohamed can get here but it’s still worrying because I don’t know what will happen back home. It’s not a nice situation. It is really sad. I think, ‘Will I ever get back?’

“I have a cat over there, which is being looked after by someone. I also have aunts and cousins there. We hope it won’t be too long but it has affected food supplies and infrastructure.”

She said she was worried about “lawlessness” that came with the chaos of the fighting, such as looting of empty homes.

But lots of people had set up community initiatives to help one another.

She said: “For example, there is an orphanage in Khartoum which had no supplies and some of the helpers couldn’t get there. There was an initiative to get them baby milk and for other people to look after the children.

“It makes me really hopeful when they manage to have online appeals and websites created to exchange supplies and give advice. It’s reassuring this is happening while fighting is going on.

“There is also the neighbourhood resistance committee that has been very active since the revolution. It works at a basic neighbourhood level but gives advice on routes and how to help if you’re injured and where to go. People aren’t completely on their own.

“A lot of my friends there have decided to stay in their homes. At the moment, it is relatively quiet, not like the first few days. A ceasefire has been declared and I hope some deal will be reached. Other people have gone to relatives in the countryside or stayed in their homes as the fighting is basically just around the capital.

“People there are caught up in the middle and it is hard to tell what’s going to happen. At the moment it is just between two sides but the worst thing would be if it escalated, if foreign powers joined in or gave weapons to one side or if civilians joined in.”