Many exhausted Sudanese and foreigners arrived in Port Sudan, the country’s main seaport, joining thousands of people who waited days to be evacuated from the lawless country. Others traveled in buses and trucks crowded to seek refuge in Egypt.
“Large parts of the capital are empty. All (residents) of our street have fled the war,” said Khartoum resident Abdullah al-Fatih.
The fighting, which has entered its third week, has turned the nearby cities of Khartoum and Omdurman into a battlefield, and residents said heavy clashes raging in residential areas had turned them into “ghost zones”.
The Al-Fateh family managed to get out of Khartoum on Sunday, after spending the last two weeks locked in their home in Khartoum’s Kafouri district, a major hotbed since fighting broke out on April 15.
He said they arrived in Port Sudan on Monday evening after an exhausting 20-hour journey. There they found thousands, including many women and children, camping outside the port area, indicating that many have been there for more than a week without food or other services.
Port Sudan has become a center where foreign governments can evacuate their citizens by air and sea.
What happens at the crowded crossing points with Egypt?
At crowded crossing points with Egypt, thousands of families waited for days in buses or sought temporary shelter in the border town of Wadi Halfa to complete their entry papers into Egypt. Youssef Abdel Rahman, a Sudanese university student, entered Egypt with his family through the Qustal (Ashket) crossing on Monday evening. He said they had spent the night at a hostel in the southern Egyptian city of Aswan and planned to catch a train to Cairo later on Tuesday. Abdul Rahman’s family first went to Arqin crossing point at the end of the week. The crossing point was overcrowded, so they decided to move to Qastal (Ashket) crossing point after hearing that crossing it would be easier, he said. “The situation is chaotic (in Arqin), women, children and the sick are stuck in the desert without food or water,” he said over the phone. Abd al-Rahman spoke of widespread destruction and looting, especially in elite neighborhoods in the capital. He said a neighbor told them on the phone that gunmen dressed in Rapid Support Forces uniforms stormed their house in the Al-Amerat neighborhood of Khartoum on Friday, the day after they fled the capital. . Many Sudanese took to social media to complain that their homes had been broken into and looted by gunmen. “We’re lucky we weren’t home at the time of the break-in,” he said, “we could have ended up with dead bodies.”
The number of displaced people is significant
The fighting has displaced at least 334,000 people inside Sudan since April 15, International Organization for Migration spokesman Paul Dillon told a press conference in Geneva. Olga Sarado, spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), said tens of thousands of people have fled neighboring countries, including Egypt, Chad, South Sudan, the Republic Central African Republic and Ethiopia, including more than 100,000 refugees. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, has warned that the number of people fleeing the conflict to neighboring countries could exceed 800,000. Don’t stop, we will see more people forced to flee Sudan in search of safety,” he wrote on Twitter. Residents reported that the sound of explosions and gunfire echoed in the early hours of Tuesday in many areas of the capital, with violent clashes around the army headquarters, the international airport and the palace. presidential in Khartoum. They added that army fighter jets had been seen flying over the capital.
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