Terrifying, crazy, desperate, relieved. These were the words that instantly came to mind as British citizens caught in the crosshairs of the conflict engulfing Sudan described their elation at being brought to safety during a fragile 72-hour truce.
In Cyprus, on the first leg of their journey back home, the evacuees spoke of anger but also hope as they related the turmoil many had unwittingly been plunged into when war erupted in the country.
“What I saw there was crazy, terrifying,” said Sami Elhaj as he prepared to board a Stansted-bound charter plane at Larnaca airport with hundreds of other evacuees. “You never expect this sort of thing to happen to you.”
Raised in Birmingham, where he works in the car manufacturing industry, the 26-year-old got caught up in Sudan’s sudden descent into violence while visiting relatives. “I had gone to support my family after my father died,” he said. “We’re all just so happy and relieved but we know there are others there who want to be where we are, who want to be here.”
The ceasefire has enabled RAF crews in Cyprus, where the UK retains two military bases, to run rescue flights out of an airfield north of Khartoum.
By late Thursday, nine such airlifts were on course to have been conducted. By early on Thursday, the third and last day of a 72-hour truce that warring generals eventually decided to extend, well-placed sources said 760 people had reached the eastern Mediterranean island. In addition to British passport holders and their dependants, dozens of American citizens and close to 70 Australians had been allowed to board the military transport planes, according to diplomats. For all, the journeys have signified freedom but also life guaranteed after weeks in a war zone that has become increasingly brutal.
For Khadija Mohamed, a nursery school teacher who had flown to Khartoum on 7 April, before tensions between Sudan’s armed forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) spiralled into savagery, the last few weeks had given her a glimpse of living hell. By the time she touched down in Cyprus – the EU’s most easterly member state and a regional hub for the evacuation of non-combatants – on a C-130 Hercules, she had witnessed gun blasts and shootings, seen dead bodies strewn in the streets “if you can imagine that” and smelt the acrid stench of burnt-out, and burning, cars: a tableau of devastation she had never thought possible when she flew out to visit family.
“It was terrible,” said the soft-spoken 53-year-old as she stood in line with other relatives at a check-in counter in Larnaca. “We really appreciate what the British people have done for us.”
Mohamed, who has lived in Bristol since 2003 and has dual citizenship, recounted the perils of reaching the Wadi Seidna airbase without an escort.
“I was, we all were, very frightened,” she said putting a reassuring arm around her niece. “There were a lot of checkpoints manned by the Sudanese army along the way. Each time you had to show your passport and it was really scary. Your stomach was in your mouth.”
The Foreign Office estimates that around 4,000 British passport holders are eligible for evacuation. Those who make it to Cyprus then board special charter flights, also commissioned by the UK government, to fly to Stansted airport.
But while feelings of gratitude and relief prevail there is also fury at the disorganisation that has plagued the operation. Mona Zanon, who has mobility issues, related the trauma of being forced to get to the RAF airbase without any aid. “I had emailed the [UK] authorities there to come and get me,” said the visibly exhausted 65-year-old clutching her British passport. “I got absolutely no answer. It made me quite angry.”
Ultimately Zanon, who has lived in Manchester for decades, said her brother had driven her to the airfield. “It was very dangerous,” she said. “Very, very dangerous.”
For others the fear of uncertainty lurked even when they reached the airfield. “I left everything behind, my jewellery, my clothes, everything,” said Hadija, a mother of three who has lived in London for the past 30 years.
“There was no plane [for us] and for two days me and my son and daughter-in-law had to sleep on the ground. There was very little to eat and it was very hard, but I am, we all are, very happy now.”
