At least some of the British nationals attempting to flee the conflict that has broken out in Sudan had a moment of profound relief on Wednesday morning: the second of three evacuation flights from an airfield north of Khartoum arrived in Cyprus, with a third expected to follow. Citizens of Turkey, France, and other countries were also flown out. But for Sudanese people – even those whose close relatives were onboard the UK flights – the exodus may simply have served as a reminder of the dangers from which they have far more limited respite.
A ceasefire between army units loyal to Sudan’s military ruler, Gen Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by his former ally Gen Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, came into effect at midnight on Tuesday, and it is supposed to last until Thursday night. In theory, this should provide an opportunity for civilians to flee the theatres of conflict and reach safe harbour.
But in practice, with airstrikes and reports of renewed fighting throughout Tuesday and other impediments to travel created by the war, that prospect looks anything but secure. Three previous ceasefires have already fallen apart. Now many civilians must decide: take the dangerous road to an unreliable promise of safety, or choose the familiarity of home in a conflict zone with no obvious end in sight.
“What I hear from people in Khartoum is jitteriness and confusion,” said the Guardian columnist Nesrine Malik, whose family home is on the outskirts of the capital. “Lots of people have gone – but others are understandably reluctant to leave home when what happens next is so uncertain.”
Here are some of the questions facing anyone trying to decide.
How reliable is the ceasefire?
The evidence of the several previous ceasefires is not encouraging: “They don’t hold universally enough for people to feel safe,” Malik said. “And so there is a lot of scepticism.”
There were reports on Tuesday of heavy gunfire and anti-aircraft weaponry being used in residential areas of Khartoum despite the ceasefire. Atiya Abdalla Atiya, secretary of the Sudan Doctors’ Syndicate, told Associated Press: “Sounds of gunfire, explosions and flying warplanes are still heard across Khartoum. They don’t respect ceasefires.”
Breaches may be the result of orders from the two sides’ leadership or indiscipline among forces on the ground. “We aren’t sure, but I would say it’s likely to be a combination,” Malik said. “It’s possible that both sides simply don’t respect it if they feel they have an opportunity to advance in crucial areas. But knowing Khartoum and its urban environment, I would say that a lot of what is happening is likely to be due to the dynamics of whatever specific territorial battle is happening between small units on either side.
“There are a lot of reports of RSF forces getting involved in unprovoked confrontations with citizens and looting, assaulting them, and taking over their homes. These are troops who have been out on the streets for 10 days, running out of money and food, and they’re more dangerous because they’re desperate.”
Sarra Majdoub, a political scientist with the Norwegian Refugee Council, gave a sense of the dangers of crossing the capital: she wrote on Twitter that she moved “four times across a battered Khartoum, like thousands. An airstrike hit my third refuge.” She said that moving across the city was like traversing a “ghost town”.
Can I overcome the other barriers to travel?
The key routes out of the capital go north-east to Port Sudan, a city made relatively safe by its lack of strategic significance and status as an evacuation hub for westerners leaving the country, and north to the Egyptian border, where refugees must travel onward to Cairo. Even if the ceasefire were impeccably observed, there are plenty of other impediments to taking them. Middle East Eye reports that ticket prices for buses out of Khartoum have at least doubled. The price for a ticket on one route from the capital to the Egyptian border has risen from $66 to $400.
The requisitioning of fuel by the two armies has meant prices have soared for anyone considering travelling by car. “And you don’t just need money for that,” Malik said. “You need more for unforeseen costs, Egyptian currency to pay for a visa if you’re going to the border, more for onward travel to Cairo. Banks are closed, there are no ATMs or currency exchanges open, and the main money transfer app isn’t working on people’s phones. So you have to find the money before you leave in a country with no working financial network.” Meanwhile, the unreliability of phone and internet signal makes planning exit routes and checking on loved ones far more difficult.
While there are stories of remarkable generosity on the road to Port Sudan – like this one, where Twitter user @dalliasd said that in “every village and town we passed through, people would come out with hibiscus juice and cold water for the ‘Khartoum travellers’” – the journey is fraught with danger. There are fears of attacks from RSF forces who hail from poorer marginalised regions of the country and “view people from Khartoum as part of an elite that has excluded them and looked down on them,” Malik said. The same applies to the road north, which “runs through harsh desert territory with no shops, no towns, in 40 or 45 degree heat.”
Can I be sure that my destination is safe?
Many of Sudan’s seven neighbours are facing their own crises, with South Sudan and Ethiopia reckoning with the aftermath of civil wars and refugee numbers that are already hard to manage. (There is still no specific safe and legal route for refugees from Sudan to the UK, and those who travel by irregular means will face detention and deportation if the government’s illegal migration bill is passed.) In Chad, where up to 20,000 people have already crossed the border, at least 100,000 in total are expected – and there are already 400,000 refugees in 14 camps near the border.
At the Egyptian border, meanwhile, there are reports of chaos. @dalliasd said that she had heard from friends and family who said the situation was “beyond horrific” and cited “the treatment, the lack of services, and the sheer number of people trying to cross”. She said a relative had arrived to find 80 buses in the queue to cross ahead of her party.
The cities within Sudan that have limited useful resources for the two armies or do not feature key infrastructure are relatively safe for now. But there is no guarantee that that situation will hold – and an end to western evacuations from Port Sudan may make the city more dangerous. “It would be really reckless for even these two volatile forces to attack there while evacuations are ongoing,” Malik said. “But once people are out, and as other cities are exhausted of resources, you can see the fight moving.”
What am I leaving behind?
After less than a fortnight, those left behind have found themselves in cities shorn of basic resources, from utilities like water and electricity to medical supplies. And they find themselves living on a battlefield. The United Nations Mine Action Service says there is a significant risk of unexploded ordnance – such as grenades – and urged civilians not to attempt to move them or touch them. One Twitter user reported that their family had “found a grenade inside the house gate that hasn’t gone off yet”. They said there were 13 children at the property.
A reported 13 hospitals have been shelled since the fighting began, with 19 being evacuated. About three-quarters of the country’s hospitals are closed, with those that remain only providing emergency services. In Darfur, Cyrus Paye, an MSF worker at the only hospital still open in the city of El Fasher, wrote: “The situation is catastrophic. The majority of the wounded are civilians who were hit by stray bullets, and many of them are children … There are so many patients that they are being treated on the floor in the corridors.”
Even as the violence has raged in Khartoum, the remnants of a western presence have acted as some brake on escalation: “You don’t want to kill the US ambassador,” Malik said. But British and US embassy officials, among others, have been airlifted out. Once the ceasefire ends or is decisively breached, “the bombing could now intensify”.
If Khartoum and other cities do continue to empty, “they become purely a battleground – which means those remaining become completely dispensable,” Malik said. “It is possible they will be totally destroyed.” This video posted on Monday by the Sudan News account from the city of Shambat in Khartoum state, where debris and black dust surround the shells of buildings at the side of a road, offers some kind of premonition of what that looks like.
Even so, when the route is so fraught, the calculus for those weighing their options is not clear. And there is another factor, Malik said: “What I hear from some people at home is: I’d rather face the violence somewhere I know.”
