Sudanese fleeing clashes flood port city, borders with Egypt

As Khartoum exploded Tuesday, Sudanese fleeing the fighting between rival generals flooded an already overcrowded city on the Red Sea and Sudan’s northern borders with Egypt.

Many exhausted Sudanese and foreigners arrived in Port Sudan, the country’s main seaport, joining thousands who have waited days to be evacuated from the chaos-stricken nation. Others have traveled by bus and truck to Egypt, Sudan’s northern neighbor.

“All (residents of) our street fled the war,” claimed Khartoum resident Abdalla al-Fatih.

Khartoum and Omdurman are now battlefields after three weeks of combat. Residents report violent conflicts in “ghost” communities.

After months of rising tensions, the military under Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan battled the Rapid Support Forces under Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.

Al-Fatih’s family left Khartoum over the weekend after two weeks imprisoned in their home in Kafouri, a significant hotspot since the conflict began on April 15.
He said they landed in Port Sudan late Monday after a grueling 20-hour drive. They found thousands, including women and children, sleeping outside the harbor. He added several had remained there for over a week without food or services.

Foreign governments use Port Sudan for air and sea evacuations.

Thousands of families have waited in buses or in Wadi Halfa to complete their paperwork to enter Egypt at the congested border crossings.

Sudanese university student Yusuf Abdel-Rahman and his family entered Egypt through Ashkit late Monday. He claimed they stayed at a community hostel in Aswan, Egypt, and will take a train to Cairo later Tuesday.

Abdel-Rahman’s family visited the Arqin crossing first over the weekend. It was too congested to approach customs. He stated they moved to Ashkit after hearing from locals that it was easier.

He called Arqin “chaotic.” “Women, children, and patients are stranded in the desert without food or water.”

Abdel-Rahman reported significant destruction and looting, particularly in wealthy capital neighborhoods. He said a neighbor called to say armed men in RSF uniforms raided their home in Khartoum’s Amarat area on Friday, a day after they fled the capital. Many Sudanese have complained on social media about armed men looting their homes.

“We’re lucky” they weren’t home during the storm, he said. “We could die.”

According to U.N. agencies, the violence has displaced 334,000 people in Sudan and tens of thousands more in neighboring Egypt, Chad, South Sudan, Central African Republic, and Ethiopia.

“Now we’re seeing some extremely fast-moving situations along the borders,” International Organization for Migration spokesman Paul Dillon told a Geneva news briefing Tuesday.

“There’s a desperate lack of wash services, food, shelter, water, medical assistance” at the Sudanese-Ethiopian border, where 900–1,000 people come everyday.

Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, warned that 800,000 people may leave the crisis to neighboring nations. “We hope it doesn’t come to that, but if violence doesn’t stop we will see more people forced to flee Sudan seeking safety,” he tweeted Monday.

Residents reported severe fighting surrounding the military headquarters, the international airport, and the Republican Palace in Khartoum early Tuesday. They saw military warplanes above the capital.

Both sides proclaimed Sunday a second, three-day humanitarian cease-fire to allow healthcare personnel and assistance groups in the capital safe passage.

“The war never stopped,” said Doctors’ Syndicate Secretary Atiya Abdalla Atiya. Doctors are safe. Hospitals were full.”

He stated that morgues were congested and individuals were still unable to retrieve their dead for burial. He stated that many injured were hospital-less.

The Doctors’ Syndicate reported on Monday that 436 civilians have been killed and over 1,200 injured since the conflict began. The Sudanese Health Ministry reported 530 civilian and combatant deaths and 4,500 injuries a week ago.

International pressure on competing generals to halt fighting and negotiate under a mounting humanitarian crisis extended the truce. According to Volker Perthes, the U.N. envoy in Sudan, both parties agreed to send delegates for negotiations in Saudi Arabia, which joined the US in calling for a cease-fire.

In October 2021, partnered generals Burhan and Dagalo overthrew a western-backed transitional government in a coup, derailing Sudan’s democratic transition.