Amin Elsheikh outside Warwick Business School, where he is a postgraduate student. Photo: Supplied
When civil war broke out in Sudan last April. This year, 27-year-old Amin Elsheikh had to flee his home in the capital Khartoum, where the fiercest fighting was taking place.
At the time, he had no idea that he was about to enter a treacherous war. A four-month journey during which he dodged bullets and survived arrest to begin a master's course at a British university with only a few hours to spare.
“I feared for my life,” Mr. said Elsheikh. “Looking back, I feel lucky to be alive. But the millions of people still stuck in Sudan are not so lucky.”
Since the start of the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary group Rapid Support Forces (RSF), more than 12,000 people have been killed and 10.7 million displaced.
With rebel militia soldiers blocking all routes out of the city, Mr Elsheikh was forced to travel by minibus through a series of dangerous checkpoints.
At one point, rebel soldiers searched and interrogated him for half a day after finding him in possession of a $100 bill. His precious savings, three changes of clothes and an engineering degree were all he could take with him as he fled.
On another occasion, he was riding a bus when rebel soldiers opened fire on passing cars. “You could see gunshots flying, cars turning around in the middle of the street trying to get away, so the bus had to veer off the road,” he said. “The survival instinct kicked in. People were crying, women were screaming, I tried to calm everyone down.”
scene in a Sudanese bus during a trip to the border with Ethiopia Photo: Amin Elsheikh
During a 15-hour bus journey through the mountain pass to the border with Ethiopia, Mr. Elsheikh and his fellow travelers feared that their bus might be attacked by looters. or bands of rebels at any time when the country has fallen into lawlessness.
However, Mr Elsheikh's ordeal in Ethiopia was not over. Having reached the border city of Gondar in the evening, he was advised to lie low amid anti-government unrest in the city.
Then a problem arose with his passport. In his haste to flee Khartoum, Mr. Elsheikh was unable to obtain his current passport at a visa center located very close to the fighting and was forced to travel using an expired travel document.
This did not matter for entry into Ethiopia, where authorities accepted his out-of-date passport, but it did matter for his onward journey to the UK, where he won a scholarship to the University of Warwick to enroll on a Masters in Business course in September 2023.
< p>He was also worried about the safety of his family. When fighting began on April 15, his mother, Nagwa Hafiz, 67, was on holiday in Egypt, while his two brothers, Islam, 30, and Ahmed, 37, were elsewhere in Khartoum. But with Internet access frequently cut off and the sound of gunfire and shelling echoing throughout the city, it was impossible to contact them.Meanwhile, his father, Abdallah, 67, lived in Gezira on south of the country. Khartoum and refused to evacuate. «He is a heart surgeon and felt it was his duty to hold his post until the last moment,» Mr. Elsheikh said ruefully.
When Mr. Elsheikh arrived in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, a two-year-old battle ensued. then to find someone who could rescue his passport in Khartoum so he could travel onwards to Dubai and finally London.
Mr. Elsheikh eventually hired someone to collect his passport from the visa center and asked a friend to carry the document across the border to deliver it in person.
From here he flew to Dubai in the hope that he could arrange safe passage to the UK from the UAE. But upon arrival, he faced even greater difficulties.
To obtain a UK visa, he first needed to have a residence in Dubai, and to rent accommodation, he needed to open a bank account — a process that took 28 days.
With just a week to go before the start of the course 25 On September 24, Mr Elsheikh trusted the visa authorities and booked a flight to London for September 24, with no guarantee that his visa would arrive on time.
On the eve of his flight, he had almost given up hope when at 4 p.m. received an email confirming that his visa was approved. “I had to run to get my passport from the application center just before it closed,” he said.
Finally, on September 24, 2023 — four months after fleeing his home in Khartoum — Mr Elsheikh boarded a flight to the UK, arriving in Warwick to begin his master's degree the next day.
Despite Despite his academic success, Mr. Elsheikh still worries about his family back in Sudan, especially his father. They lost contact for nearly a month in February when militia forces cut off communications networks in areas they controlled.
“When the RSF took over the state, it was like ethnic cleansing. Robberies, assaults, rapes and muggings have become the norm,” he said. “My father is fine. He has still not been persuaded to leave the country, but we are working on it.»
Elsheikh's brothers managed to reach Dubai safely.
When Mr. Elsheikh's course comes to an end in September 2024 year, he's not sure what the next chapter holds for him. “My heart is still at home in Sudan and I would like to go back and help rebuild my country,” he said. “Unfortunately, there is nothing to return to at the moment.”
Ahead of the conflict's anniversary, the crisis shows no sign of abating, and access to humanitarian aid has been limited amid reports of mass killings, making it extremely difficult for aid to reach vulnerable communities.
The country is also now teetering on the brink of famine. and aid groups warn that seven million people could face severe hunger this summer.
“My family has lost everything. All our belongings, our cars, our house — last time I checked, RSF soldiers were living there,” Mr Elsheikh said. «But it pales in comparison to what other people have lost in this war.»
Mr Elsheikh struggles with survivor's guilt, repeatedly emphasizing how lucky he is to escape and have a place at university , which could be relied upon. .
“I know a lot of internally displaced people who are simply frozen and cannot move on,” he said. “There are 10.7 million stories like mine. Unfortunately, not many of them have a happy ending.”
Свежие комментарии