Sudanese fleeing fighting in their homeland face uncertain future, unsure of return

Reuters :
The café outside Aswan station was full of Sudanese families, surrounded by luggage and waiting for the train to Cairo, the next leg in their arduous journey escaping violence that has torn apart their country and overturned their lives.

Aswan, the Egyptian city closest to the border with Sudan, has become a way station for tens of thousands of Sudanese fleeing fighting between Sudan’s military and rival paramilitary force. The displaced arrive exhausted after days on the chaotic roads. Now, they must figure out how to navigate a future that is suddenly uncertain, with no idea when they will be able to return home.

At Aswan’s Nasser café, a Sudanese university professor Naglaa al-Khair Ahmed was still stunned by the sudden explosion of violence on 15 April, after escalating tensions between Sudan’s two top generals.

“We never imagined that verbal skirmishes would end up with war,” she said. “We didn’t expect that a decision (to go to) war was so easy to take.”

She was heading to the Egyptian capital Cairo with her elderly father and her daughter. Her husband had remained behind in their home city of Omdurman, which neighbours the capital, Khartoum.

“I was crying the whole way” out of Sudan, she said, wiping away her tears, “I kept telling myself, ‘I will return. Certainly, I will return very soon.'” She has no idea when – “One month, maximum,” she said hopefully.

More than 76,000 Sudanese and over 5,000 other nationals have crossed into Egypt since the fighting began, according to the Egyptian government. The UN refugee agency says it expects the number to reach 350,000. The influx has slowed in the past week, but Sudanese refugees still keep coming as fighting continues.