2023-04-26 02:25:01
Spending days collecting money, driving for hours in the dark night, on the ruts, to cover a thousand kilometers and cross the fighters’ checkpoints trembling: to reach Egypt, the Sudanese say they are ready to endure anything.
Hiding at his home in Khartoum, under the thunder of bombardments, Omar, who testifies under a pseudonym, spent more than 24 hours organizing everything.
The most perilous step was to get out of his neighborhood: “We went through 25 checkpoints to get to the bus station at the exit of Khartoum”, he told AFP. Then we had to find 45 people to fill a bus and collect the money to pay for the tickets. When Omar showed up at the counter, it cost 105 euros per person.
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Several hours later, as hundreds of families continued to storm the bus station, acquaintances had to pay “360 euros”, the equivalent of a civil servant’s monthly salary. Even once the ticket is purchased, “some buses don’t start until the next day”, says Omar, for lack of fuel, the price of which has been “multiplied by eight”.
“Four to 70”
Noon Abdelbassit, a 21-year-old medical student who arrived in Cairo on Sunday following a 48-hour journey, left with “ten relatives from four to 70 years old”. In Khartoum, the bus was checked “twice by the army, once by the paramilitaries”. Everytime, “we were afraid that they would hurt someone with their weapons”, more “they only looked at who was on the bus”, she remembers.
Then, finally, the passengers were able to breathe: on the 1,000 kilometers which connect Khartoum to the border post of Arguine, they did not cross a single dam. But they had to endure 13 hours of travel, in the middle of the desert and sometimes in “total darkness, on a road strewn with potholes”, with no restaurants or shops in sight. Along with five other people, Moussaab Alhadi, a 22-year-old student, helps those who want to flee to prepare.
“When people call us before they leave for Egypt, we check with them if they have enough water and food” for the journey, he told AFP. Those who are already at the gates of Egypt advise to carefully calculate the time of arrival at the border post. “There are a lot of people so it is better to arrive early in the morning, otherwise you have to wait a long time”, a Sudanese in his thirties testified on Tuesday.
Himself, arrived in the evening with his family, had to wait for the reopening all night, then the next morning under a blazing sun. Before, they had driven a day from Khartoum, “a long and exhausting journey” on a “unlit road”, but spared by the conflict between the Sudanese army and paramilitary forces, which claimed more than 450 lives in ten days according to the UN.
“For visa-free entry”
Normally, only Sudanese women, children and men over 50 can enter Egypt without a visa, where four million Sudanese are already settled, according to the UN. For others, you have to go to the Egyptian consulate in Wadi Halfa, another border post.
But faced with a conflict that seems hopeless, in Egypt, Internet users are calling to welcome refugees unconditionally, under the hashtag “for the entry of Sudanese without a visa”. “Egypt is your country and you are our brothers”, one of them said. Others offer “breast milk” or “medical services” Sudanese by leaving their phone number.
Because once the border is crossed, the road is still long. The next town, Aswan, is 300 kilometers away. For those who want to continue to Cairo, it takes regarding twenty hours by bus. Noon Abdelbassit and his family preferred the sleeper train, for the comfort and because it only takes him 14 hours to make the trip.
They are now safe. But they might be joined by many others, assures AFP Cameron Hudson, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington. It is to be expected “to a mass exodus of millions of civilians at the first ceasefire” that will really hold, he warns.
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