Updated May 16, 2024 at 11 a.m.*
WADI HALFA — With their country torn apart by war, more and more Sudanese fleeing the fighting have been forced to take a perilous trip through the desert to reach Egypt.
Most wind up crossing illegally into their northern neighbor, since they are unable to get entry visas following the closure of the Egyptian embassy — like most of the foreign missions — in the capital, Khartoum.
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It’s a 1,200 kilometer-long (745 miles) trip to the border town of Wadi Halfa, filled with risks of violence and starvation. But there are no other options since the war started a year ago.
The conflict broke out in April last year after heightened tensions between the military and the notorious paramilitary Rapid Support Forces exploded into street fighting in the capital, and elsewhere in the East African country.
The conflict has been marked with atrocities including killings, ethnic killings, rape and gang rape, especially in the western region of Darfur — a site of genocide in the early 2000s. About 15,000 people have been killed, according to the United Nations.
The current war has created the world’s largest displacement crisis with about 9 million people forced to leave their homes, pushing Sudan to the brink of famine, according to the United Nations.
Clementine Nkweta-Salami, the UN’s Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, warned this week that the international community “cannot stand by as this crisis spirals out of control,” as “time is running out” for the population of the war-ravaged country.
Last week, 48 Sudanese parties and movements, which claim to support the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), gathered in Cairo to sign the Sudan Charter, as part of efforts to establish a new foundation for the state by forming a new provisional government during a three-year transition period. But such a move is conditional upon the end of the war, which has now entered its second year.
Risky, but no other option
The Egyptian consulate in the border town of Wadi Halfa was overwhelmed on a recent day, with Sudanese having to wait months to get visas. They shelter in schools, public squares, roads, mosques and hotels in and around the town.
But many others took the risk and crossed into Egypt through the desert road. They pay between 0 and 0 each to traffickers, according to many people who arrived in Egypt.
“Unfortunately, we had to choose between death from hunger and bombing in Sudan, or death in the desert on our road to survive,” one Sudanese woman said.
She said she was forced to take the risk given the lack of hospitals, medical services, distribution of communication services, and electricity blackouts in Khartoum. “Life in Sudan has become almost impossible, and we know that this path is also full of danger and difficulties, but we have run out of solutions,” she said.
You feel you could die at any moment.
The trip through the desert is extremely dangerous, especially for women and children. It includes many suffering from hunger and sleeping in the open, to the risk of being robbed or killed by armed men along the road.
Another Sudanese woman who went by the name of Fatimah said her trip started in Khartoum North city (Bahri), to a warehouse in the Abu Hamad area close to the border, passing through the city of Atbara. Abu Hamad is the starting point to the desert, she said.
They board trucks and are usually tied with ropes and chains “out of fear of falling out of the vehicles, because they move at an insane speed and do not stop no matter what happens or no matter how much we ask the driver to stop,” she said.
The trip takes between three to 10 days to reach Egypt, she said, during which you “feel that you could die at any moment.”
“I am lucky enough that the car continued on the road and did not leave us in the desert,” she said.
Children are the most vulnerable
Children are the ones who suffer most, said another woman who called herself Rahma. “They drank water mixed with gas, as there was not enough water for everyone. Their journey lasted four days, during which they only ate one meal,” she said.
This is the worst child displacement crisis in the world
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock highlighted the plight of children in her speech at a donors conference in Paris on Monday. “What we are witnessing in Sudan is the worst child displacement crisis in the world,” she said.
“In many of our countries, as the war enters its second year, it is practically absent from our daily news. Every life counts equally, whether in Ukraine, in Gaza, or in Sudan … The international community has to provide more for the people of Sudan, for the children of Sudan.”
The majority of women who arrive in Egypt suffer from psychological trauma including panic attacks, fear, tension, insomnia, and recurring nightmares.
They are unable to escape what they were exposed to on the way, such as the death of a passenger, or their exposure to threats or ill-treatment from car drivers, and their fear of death on the road. They also suffer from physical repercussions like skin infections, scorpion bites, lung inflammation, physical bruises, dehydration due to lack of water.
Death in the desert
One woman, named Tahani, recalled that a driver dropped a woman and the bodies of her two children who died on the road and continued the trip. “They could not bear the desert sand, so the driver of the vehicle had no choice but to leave the mother with the bodies of her two children in the desert to bury them, and continued without them,” she recalled.
Hala, another Sudanese, said her family spent a week in a hospital after they arrived in Egypt for treatment from scorpion bites and skin infections. “In the vehicle with us, we had an elderly man who wanted to reach Egypt for treatment, but he died from exhaustion. We buried him in the desert and continued our journey,” she recalled. “We bury people as we bury anything that has no value. Who cares about what happens to us in Sudan?! I am shocked.”
It’s now known how many Sudanese have died in the desert while trying to reach Egypt.
Sometimes drivers and traffickers left the passengers facing their fate in the desert. That’s what happened with Kholoud, another Sudanese woman. She said the driver pledged to return but never showed up.
They waited for five days in the desert until they found seats in another vehicle heading toward the border of Egypt. And they paid again.
*This article was originally published April 21, 2024, and updated May 16, 2024 with new information relative to the latest situation in Sudan, as well as enriched media.
