Explosions shattered the glass windows of Sally Abdel Mahmoud’s home in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital. Her car was hit by shrapnel, and a shell landed on the house next door.
“My youngest son screamed that ‘we will all die’ every time we heard an explosion,” said Abdel Mahmoud, who fled the war-torn country to Egypt with her husband and four children this week.
Like at least 40,000 other Sudanese civilians, the family made the arduous and expensive journey to Aswan in southern Egypt by road, travelling and sleeping on a bus for most of the week it took to arrive.
They and other refugees describe living in fear under constant bombardment in Khartoum, where the conflict that broke out last month has led to power and water outages, and residents must risk dangerous streets to seek scarce food and medicines.
The conflict pits forces led by Sudan’s de facto president and army chief General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces of General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemeti. At least 550 people have been killed and almost 5,000 injured since fighting began in mid-April, though the UN acknowledges that the real figures may be much higher.
Abdel Mahmoud said RSF fighters fired missiles from an anti-aircraft battery just outside her home. “The RSF broke our door and came in looking for food and water,” she said in a coffee shop near the railway station in Aswan, as the family awaited a train to Cairo. “They did not harm us but we had to leave because the house was not safe.”
Kalthoum Aboul Kassem, who fled with her daughter, brother and several other members of her family, said: “We lived in Khartoum near the army command, and could see all the fighting. After eight days our water tank was running out so we had to leave.”
Her family will stay at her sister’s home near Aswan until it is safe to return, but her brother Abu Bakr — who previously worked for the army — plans to return to Sudan and rejoin the military.
“I have been at odds with Burhan for a long time, but now the army represents Sudanese sovereignty,” he said.
Despite the announcement of a fresh week-long truce starting on Thursday, residents of Khartoum said there had been no let-up in the clashes, while areas of the city of 6mn people had been flattened. Fighting has also flared elsewhere in Sudan, including Darfur in the west. About 334,000 people have been internally displaced and more than 100,000 people fled to neighbouring countries, the UN said.
As each side accuse the other of breaking the ceasefire, people have continued to flee to Egypt and other neighbouring countries such as Chad, South Sudan and the Central African Republic.
“Khartoum is in turmoil; Darfur is burning once again; and the UN refugee agency is warning that more than 800,000 people could flee the country,” UN secretary-general António Guterres said last week in Nairobi. US president Joe Biden on Thursday paved the way for future sanctions against individuals determined to be “destabilising” Sudan and committing violence against civilians.
The conflict hit a country scarred by decades of conflicts, coups, dictatorship and broken promises of a democratic transition. About a third of the population already needed humanitarian assistance before the latest bout of fighting. Martin Griffiths, the UN humanitarian chief, has warned that Sudan is reaching a humanitarian “breaking point”. Following mediation efforts from Washington and Riyadh, emissaries from the warring factions met in Saudi Arabia this weekend to negotiate humanitarian corridors.
Yet the high cost of the journey means most of those reaching Egypt from Khartoum are relatively well off. In some Sudanese urban areas, the price of basic commodities — such as bottled water, food staples and fuel — has risen by 40-60 per cent since the latest conflict began, according to Unicef, in an economy where consumer prices were already spiralling at an annual inflation rate of more than 70 per cent.
In Aswan, Madani, the head of a leasing company, and his wife Nadia described how life became impossible in their home in a well-off part of Omdurman, Khartoum’s twin city across the Nile.
“Grocery shops and bakeries are closed. There are no police and we started hearing of criminal acts,” Madani said. “We knew that after a while there would be no gasoline for the generator or car.”
Friends have organised a flat in Cairo, but Madani said they did not plan to stay long. “I have responsibilities in Sudan,” he said. “I have been unable to sleep because I have staff who should have been paid at the beginning of the month, but banks are closed.”
Sarah arrived in Aswan with her 70-year-old mother, Aisha and 10 other family members, paying $600 per person for the trip. “My mother is diabetic and has high blood pressure,” she said. “We had to leave before she ran out of insulin. Most of the hospitals in Khartoum have been destroyed.”
Her family, like many others, endured bleak desert conditions at the crossing, where dozens of buses queue for days and passengers must wait with little access to water, shade or services. “We spent two nights at the crossing. We have small children with us who cried during the entire journey,” she said.
The Egyptian foreign ministry said authorities were providing relief and emergency services at the two border crossings with Sudan and adding extra staff. Facilities such as toilets have been hastily built, while international aid agencies have been given access only in recent days.
Most of those arriving in Egypt are women and children, because men between 16 and 50 require a visa. Those can be obtained in the small town of Halfa in northern Sudan, but only after days of waiting. That town too has been transformed by the exodus: it is overrun with thousands of people who are sleeping on buses or crammed on the floors of the main mosque, according to those arriving in Egypt.
But the refugees are anxious about staying in Egypt for long. Sarah’s family will stay with relatives in Cairo, but her mother is wondering how they will afford it. “Egypt is expensive: how can we stay there?” she asked.
Yet Sarah is pessimistic about the chances of returning home; the belligerents will not repair the damage they have wrought on the country, she believes. “They are only out for themselves. They won’t fix anything.”