A British NHS consultant is desperate to return to war-torn Sudan in a bid to save his 76-year-old mother.
Hisham Elfaki, 39, from Sheffield, says that he needs to head into the warzone to help his Sudanese mum who suffers from severe arthritis and has gone days without food or water.
The NHS worker’s mother Zeinab, 76, fears she will die in the desert or be stuck at a border if she journeys out of Sudan alone without a guarantee of safety to Britain.
Tormented by worries over her welfare, Hisham says he needs to either find a way back into the conflict which has seen over 400 civilian deaths, or for the UK government to step in and provide a family visa scheme for those with British relatives.
Hisham said: “[My mum] says, ‘I’d rather die in my own home than die in the desert or on a border being humiliated.’
“If I don’t go in, she won’t be able to survive for very long. She’s running out of money. She needs to eat, she needs to drink.
“She doesn’t want to get on a random bus somewhere. She doesn’t want to end up in a situation where she’s in limbo.
“With Ukraine, they helped families, they had schemes where people can get reunited here. Shouldn’t that be something that the UK government looks at?”
A government spokesperson said: “We have no plans to open a bespoke resettlement route for Sudan. Preventing a humanitarian emergency in Sudan is our focus right now.
“Alongside the UK evacuation effort, we are working with international partners and the United Nations to bring an end to fighting.
“Since 2015 we have offered a safe and legal route to the UK to almost half a million people seeking safety but our approach must be considered in the round, rather than on a crisis-by-crisis basis.”
Almost 2,500 people were moved to safety from Sudan on 30 UK evacuation flights, the Government announced on May 4.
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said a total of 2,450 people were helped during the “longest and largest” evacuation of any Western country, with the final flight departing Port Sudan on Wednesday evening.
The Government said the majority of those evacuated from the African nation were British nationals and their dependents.
It added the UK helped evacuate 1,200 people from other nations, including the United States, Ireland, Netherlands, Canada, Germany and Australia.
Sudanese army chief General Abdel Fattah Burhan and his rival General Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo, the head of a paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), were allies in an October 2021 military coup that halted Sudan’s fraught transition to democracy, but they have since turned on each other.
Mr Cleverly said: “The UK has co-ordinated the longest and largest evacuation of any Western country and brought 2,450 people to safety from Sudan.
“We remain focused on supporting those who are in desperate need of humanitarian assistance and continue to press for a long-term ceasefire.”
Defence Secretary Ben Wallace added: “I am truly grateful for the dedication and professionalism of the men and women of our Armed Forces who have evacuated more than 2,000 people from Sudan from over 20 countries and continue to provide medical and humanitarian support from Port Sudan, supported by the Royal Air Force.
“Their efforts are a source of national pride.”
