“The farewell was painful. I left Sudan for the first time with sorrow squeezing my heart, my eyes catching scenes of ruin and destruction, while my thoughts were drowning in our lost homes and the belongings we left behind.” With these words, Mayada Salah, a Sudanese woman living in Cairo since the war broke out in April 2023, recalls the harsh moments of displacement. She describes leaving her homeland as a wound that has not healed, and she still carries the dream of return, longing for the details of her old life and her room, which she left in disarray, hoping to return one day to put it back in order as it was.
The dream of return was not Mayada’s alone: Seif El-Brof is waiting for the security situation to improve and for targeting based on ethnicity and geography to end so that he can return to his homeland. He says sadly: “Although Egypt received us and opened its doors, my heart and soul are still there.” Seif lost many members of his family and friends in the crisis, and is still struggling to adapt to his new life in Egypt, but he admits: “I feel I am living without a soul, as if our forced displacement has robbed us of our lives and thrown us into an endless exile.”
Seif El-Brof lives in Cairo moving between homes, on an endless search for a place that suits his limited financial means. High rents have become a burden he cannot bear; he recently settled in an unfurnished home in 6th of October City at a cost of EGP 7,000 a month. He says bitterly: “We come from a war zone; we lost everything. There are those who exploit our weakness, so much so that some Sudanese found no way out but to return to Sudan, despite the dangers surrounding them there.”
The young man in his thirties, who works as a journalist, suffers from the hardship of life and the scarcity of available opportunities. He recounts: “The Rapid Support Forces militias looted my property and killed members of my family. All I have left is the land; it is all I own and I dream of returning to it. I hope the situation improves as soon as possible so that I can return to my homeland, which still lives in my heart.”
Forced Departure
“Forced departure carries an indescribable pain,” says Hanadi Abdel Latif Suhail, a Sudanese woman living in Cairo. “Nothing is harder than being forced to leave your homeland and your home.” Nostalgia constantly pursues her for a country torn apart by war, where the Janjaweed militia now occupies her home, whose contents they looted entirely. She recalls: “I was living with my husband’s family, but the war separated us, and the death of my daughter’s grandfather broke all our hearts. Sometimes I wonder: will we ever return to that house? And how will we face his absence, which can never be replaced?”
Two months into the war, Hanadi Abdel Latif realised that the situation in Sudan would not calm down soon, and that the complexity of the crisis was worsening day by day. She decided to flee to Egypt with her small family, which includes her two sisters, Amani and Yasmin, and three children: her seven-year-old daughter and her sister’s daughters, aged three and five. The road to Egypt was not easy; the family faced a bitter ordeal when members of the Rapid Support militia seized the children’s passports, making travel seem impossible. But, by sheer chance, the family found the passports scattered in a nearby area, and continued its painful journey towards safety.
Hanadi arrived in Egypt last February, where she settled with her sister Tahani. She left behind memories she relives in her dreams, pinning her hopes on an end to the war and a return to her homeland: “The dream of return has never left me, and I live in the hope of fulfilling it one day.”
Habib Yacoub, secretary-general of the Sudanese Association in Egypt, confirms that all Sudanese long to return despite the dangers. He points out that some have already returned, despite the difficult conditions, after their money and property in Sudan became worthless. The well-off in their homeland have become among the poor in Egypt, waiting for the end of the conflict that has destroyed everything.
On 9 April, the UNHCR spokesperson, Olga Sarrado, said that the number of Sudanese refugees registered with UNHCR in Egypt had increased fivefold over the past year, at a daily rate of between 2,000 and 3,000 refugees and asylum seekers approaching UNHCR reception facilities in Greater Cairo and Alexandria. In August 2024, more than 748,000 refugees and asylum seekers were registered with UNHCR in Egypt, most of them women and children who had recently arrived in Egypt fleeing the brutal conflict that began in Sudan in April 2023. Since the outbreak of the conflict, the number of registered Sudanese refugees has grown about sevenfold and is expected to keep rising. According to data published by UNHCR based on the Egyptian government last November, about 1.2 million Sudanese have been displaced to Egypt since the start of the war.
Shawq Mahmoud, a volunteer activist, recalls her experience: “The first time I entered Egypt after the war was in May 2023, but I returned to Sudan on 20 October of the same year.” She returned to her homeland driven by a strong desire to help the displaced in the camps, despite knowing the dangers.
The return journey was full of dangers; the woman in her thirties endured anxiety and fear as she found herself moving between Sudan’s inflamed regions. She first arrived in Red Sea State, which overlooks the Red Sea, with its capital Port Sudan, then moved to the city of Wad Madani, one of the major cities of Gezira State. These areas had been struck by destruction and had seen most of their residents displaced, so that her journey was like walking on the edge of death with every step.
Shawq Mahmoud talks about her perilous journey: “Danger followed me all the way, and the feeling of insecurity never left me. I was with my little ones, who were screaming with fear, and I lived in constant expectation of clashes that could break out at any moment, in addition to the danger of diseases for which there is no treatment.” Despite those difficulties, Shawq went on with her difficult journey, driven by a desire to help her displaced compatriots.
But after the circumstances exhausted her, she returned to Cairo last July with her children, seeking educational stability for them. She says: “I came to Cairo because education in the states is unstable. I came back to secure my children’s future, but I live in the hope of returning to the homeland soon.”
The International Organization for Migration published a report on 23 July on mobility in Sudan, stating that there are about 10.7 million people (2.1 million households) displaced in Sudan, 55% of them children under 18, who have suffered more than a year of separation, human rights violations, trauma, violence and lack of access to basic services. The total number of displaced includes an estimated 7.9 million people who have fled their homes since the start of the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces on 15 April 2023. About 2.1 million people have crossed the borders into neighbouring countries since 15 April 2023, including Egypt, Chad, the Republic of South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Libya and Uganda, up to the period covered by the report in July.
The Price of Return
Habib Yacoub complains of the high cost of living in Egypt, where everyone, Egyptians and Sudanese alike, suffers from the pressure of rising costs. He says: “Everyone is suffering, and returning to the homeland requires money. There are Sudanese who have decided to return to their country despite the war, preferring that to living here in humiliation and need.”
Through personal efforts, Habib has helped a number of his compatriots return through the travel offices where he works, saying: “We collected aid to cover the travel costs of those who could not adapt to life here.” He explained that returning requires a Sudanese passport and an entry visa, with the possibility of negotiating a reduction in the cost of overland travel by bus, which is about EGP 1,500. He adds: “There are families, especially women and children, who find it very difficult to provide the amount, which pushes them to return despite the dangers awaiting them.”
He adds that some Sudanese began returning to their war-torn homeland, specifically since last February, because of high prices and the steep rise in rents, which jumped from EGP 800 to EGP 8,000 unfurnished: “On top of the deposit and the brokerage fee, there is clear exploitation, as those who cannot pay are evicted and those who pay more are housed.”
Iqbal Abbas (73) came to Egypt two weeks after the war began, on 17 May 2023, with her husband, daughters and grandchildren, stressing that all her hope lies in returning, even if she lives on the rubble of her house, as she told us: “We imagine our return every day and remember our homes; even if all that remains of them after their destruction is rubble, we will live in them.”
She recounts that she lived in one of the most dangerous areas, Tuti, in the centre of the capital between Khartoum and Omdurman: “It was one of the first towns to be struck.” She decided to come to Egypt, and on the road, which lasted more than a week, her maternal aunt died, unable to bear the hardship of the journey, until they arrived and settled in Zahraa El Maadi in Cairo.
She says her grandchildren still suffer from post-war psychological trauma, crying bitterly over the loss of their schools, their toys and their lives: “My son is still there in Sudan because he is a police captain, and my grandchildren want to return to see their uncle, and we try to reassure them that the return is near.”
Hanadi, meanwhile, says: “My house was not spared looting and theft after members of the Rapid Support militias entered it: they broke the doors, damaged the furniture, stole, vandalised and threw everything in it on the floor, and even smashed the kitchen utensils. I lost everything in the house, but I still dream of returning.” She lived in the Al-Nakheel neighbourhood in Omdurman, then went to River Nile State, where she stayed for more than a month and a half waiting for the war to stop, after which she came to Egypt: “The months of waiting were among the hardest days we went through.”
She remembers the first seven days of the war at home, as the sound of gunfire rose and she watched her daughter’s terror: “They were hard and terrifying days. The voice of my daughter, Talia, still rings in my ears, terrified by the sounds we heard in our first-floor apartment, which grew louder daily,” explaining that she suffered moving between the city of Shendi in River Nile State, then Dongola in Northern State, then the city of Wadi Halfa: “We did not know that ahead of us were thousands waiting to enter Egypt with a visa.”
Hanadi could find no answer to her little girl’s questions, repeated every day over more than a month of waiting, about when they would travel, which affected her badly psychologically: “She was greatly affected, and each time I tried to explain to her that many people who had come before us were ahead of us, and she did not calm down until we arrived in Egypt.” Since her arrival she has been looking for a job in her field of specialisation, media: “I have not lost hope.” Her daughter’s education worries her, given the high school fees while she has no work or income, in addition to losing everything she owns: “I lost my husband’s car, the last thing we owned. The car was inside the Khatmiyya Mosque in Bahri and remained safe for more than a year, but two months after we arrived we learned it had been stolen… We no longer own anything.”
Mayada lost almost everything she owned, with nothing left but a few clothes and her laptop. She thought her joy at completing the preliminary master’s in international relations at the University of Khartoum would be the beginning of fulfilling her dreams, but she found herself fleeing death through the Argeen land crossing. She recounts the harsh scenes still etched in her memory: “I saw the enormous crowding of people fleeing the horrors of war, more than fifty buses, and a long wait between life and death. I saw people die before they got the chance to cross.”
Mayada bitterly recounts scenes of looting and violence: the storming of shops and banks, the violation of homes, and the rape of girls and their forcible abduction. When she arrived at the Cairo land port in June 2023 and obtained the visa-on-arrival stamp, she took her first steps on Egyptian soil slowly, filled with pain and anguish. She looked back as if searching for a missing part of herself, asking with held-back tears: “Will I ever return? When will I see my little home again? Will I meet my sister and brother, who are still in Omdurman?”
Between Mayada, who lives in the hope of return, Hanadi, who shares the dream, and those who have risked returning to their homeland despite the horrors of war, the cries and questions of the Sudanese continue to echo: when will this war, which has spared nothing, end?
