To do so they have crammed onto buses and trucks, paying as much as $500 each to be taken to the border posts of Arqeen to the west of Lake Nubia and Qustul just north of Wadi Halfa, and on to Egypt. With Khartoum's airport shut, tens of thousands have fled by road to safer areas outside the capital, and across the country's borders.Īt least 64,000 people have crossed into Egypt, according to government figures, already home to an estimated 4 million Sudanese and a country where many families have connections.
It has stirred new unrest in Darfur in Sudan's west - where a conflict that escalated after 2003 has never been resolved - and has sparked clashes and attacks across the nation of 46 million.īut the fighting has mostly been focused on Khartoum and its sister cities of Bahri and Omdurman, all of which were largely spared during Sudan's previous wars, waged by the army and allied militias in remote regions.įor three weeks, millions of residents have cowered in their homes from air strikes, artillery battles, marauding fighters and lawlessness, many cut off from power and water and struggling to restock on food. LOOTING AND LAWLESSNESSĪ power struggle between Sudan's army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that erupted into fighting on April 15 threatens to plunge the country into a protracted civil war and a deep humanitarian crisis. The ministry said last week in response to questions about the border crossings that authorities had been working to facilitate evacuation of all nationalities from Sudan since the start of fighting, and to provide care for those crossing the frontier. "If he doesn't get the visa, we will have to go, but how can I leave an 18-year-old who has never traveled alone before?"Ībdel Qadir Abdullah, Sudan's consul in Aswan, said on Sunday that as of five days ago, 6,000 passports were awaiting visas in Wadi Halfa and that Egypt's foreign ministry had sent reinforcements to speed up the process. Look at us now," said Hassan, 40, who travelled with her son from the upscale Kafouri neighbourhood, just over the Blue Nile from central Khartoum. "We left our house where we lived a good life. The rule has led to a bottleneck in Wadi Halfa, 25 km south of the frontier and home to an Egyptian consulate, as businessmen, doctors and other well-to-do Sudanese pack hotels, schools and hospitals, and spill onto the streets. While women, children and the elderly can enter Egypt freely, though often after waiting days in testing conditions at a packed border, Sudanese men aged 16-50 must apply for visas. WADI HALFA, Sudan, May 8 (Reuters) - After sleeping for a week under a tree in the backyard of a mosque in the Sudanese town of Wadi Halfa, Dalia Hassan is torn over whether she should cross the frontier into Egypt, or wait until her 18-year-old son gets a visa.Ī few paces away in the hot, dusty, desert settlement, a family including three pregnant sisters and a grandmother with an oxygen cylinder take turns on rented beds as they await an Egyptian visa for Mohamed, who is 16.Īmid the waves of displacement caused by the war in Sudan, many of the country's well-off have fled the capital Khartoum and embarked on an expensive and gruelling road journey to the border with Egypt, 720 km (450 miles) to the north.
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