Sudanese refugees risking life and limb to return home from Egypt

Shift follows recent gains by Sudan's military from rival RSF paramilitary and the economic pressures of living away from home

A Sudanese refugee gets a haircut in Cairo. More than a million people fled to Egypt after civil war broke out in Sudan last April 2023. EPA-EFE

The number of Sudanese refugees returning home from Egypt has been rising since July despite the continuing civil war in their homeland between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

An estimated 1.2 million Sudanese have fled to Egypt since fighting broke out in April last year between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the RSF. The war has displaced an estimated total of 11 million people, claimed tens of thousands lives, severely affected health services and created widespread hunger.

The RSF took over Khartoum mere days after the war began and the army was forced to relocate its headquarters to Port Sudan, a city on the Red Sea coast. But recent reports of the army retaking parts of Sudanese capital from the RSF have prompted many former residents to consider going home.

“I was living in a two-bedroom apartment with 10 of my family members, so it was tight,” said Mohamed Hassan, 43. "I had arrived in November of last year and it has been one of the hardest years of my life. In the few weeks before I departed Egypt, life had become too expensive to sustain. The school year started and I couldn’t enrol my children because of the high fees."

Life in Cairo, or head back home?

Mr Hassan returned to his home on October 1 in the Karrari district of Omdurman, one of three cities that make up Sudan's capital area, with his wife, daughter and sister after the SAF had recaptured it. He intends to remain there if the area stays under army control, he told The National. His three brothers, sister, mother and father are still in Cairo, waiting to see how the situation develops.

Life for Sudanese refugees in Cairo became more stressful after the Egyptian government in August last year decreed any unregistered foreign residents would be required to pay $1,000 to legalise their status by a deadline of June 30. However, the fee was more than most Sudanese in Egypt could afford and many have not paid.

A report by the Sudan News Agency (Suna) this week cited an official at the Qustul-Ashkeet crossing in Wadi Halfa, on the Sudan-Egypt border, as saying 7,890 people crossed into Sudan in August this year, with the figure rising to 12,239 in September. Most of those returning were families and the trend is expected to continue in the coming weeks, the official said.

On the other hand, the inflow of refugees into Egypt is also showing few signs of drying up, with the UN refugee agency UNHCR reporting a registered 31,265 newly arrived Sudanese in September.

Mr Hassan said he began to seriously consider a return to Sudan after hearing from friends and relatives who took the step in August. “I was in constant contact with many people after they returned to Khartoum and Omdurman. I waited to see whether things were safe enough to go back, but they said things were equally as tough in Sudan, which always discouraged me.”

He eventually decided to return last month after visiting friends in Faisal, a lower-income district of Cairo, which, along with parts of Nasr City and Al Basateen, houses one of the city’s largest populations of Sudanese refugees. When Mr Hassan arrived, people were watching a live broadcast of an SAF general and his soldiers celebrating recent gains in northern Khartoum and promising that civilian life would be restored to the war-torn city.

“We cheered and jumped and hugged each other when the video finished," he said. "We then went down to a local cafe, run by Sudanese, and we found it packed with people. Everyone was talking about the army’s wins and how much they missed their home. By the end of the night, the narrow street was packed with people. Someone brought out a DJ stand and played Sudanese songs.”

Celebrations have also taken place in Khartoum in the past two weeks as news of the SAF’s successes spread through the capital, according to Khalid Ibrahim, an Omdurman resident who has remained there since the start of the civil war.

Limited health services

However, Mr Hassan came back to find life in the capital was still difficult, as food scarcity continues, and limited support from the government has forced the displaced to live in crowded shelters and rely on money sent by relatives abroad. Health services are also limited, with more than 70 per cent of Khartoum’s hospitals destroyed, Unicef says.

“The only healthcare services available are those provided by NGOs and local civil society groups, staffed mostly with volunteers,” said Mr Ibrahim, the Omdurman resident.

Fighting in Khartoum, Omdurman and Bahri, the three cities that make up Sudan's capital, remains a significant danger. Neither the army nor the RSF differentiate between civilian and military targets, Mr Ibrahim says, so “you go to the market at your own peril”.

Most Sudanese want the SAF to win, despite the army's history of autocratic rule in Sudan and its neglect of civilian needs during the civil war, says Hatim Dirdiri, a Sudanese analyst.

“Many of the military regimes that govern Arab nations like Egypt, Syria and previously Iraq are in the strictest sense colonisers, as they were modelled after British and European government structures from the colonial era," he said. "The Sudanese military is no different, it is autocratic and many Sudanese have opposed it. But when compared with the RSF, which has been a force of pure anarchy, most Sudanese support the military.

'Horrifying acts'

Mr Dirdiri, who escaped to Uganda last year after being internally displaced for months, added: “Autocrats are forces of extreme order and militias are forces of extreme anarchy. The Sudanese people, like many others around the world, I suspect, would rather have the former than the latter.”

Despite reports of looting and violence against civilians by both sides, the RSF’s acts have stood out since the start of the war as more egregious. Mr Ibrahim described the period when the RSF held most of the capital, including parts of Omdurman, as “horrifying”.

“I have seen them do some terrible things,” he said. "They steal what they want, beat who they want. They answer to no one, each soldier is out for themselves. If they’re dragging a family member away and you beg them to stop, they will shoot you, no questions. I have seen this with my own eyes."

The RSF originated from the Janjaweed, a coalition of tribal militias active since the 1980s in Sudan.

“The Janjaweed’s involvement in the many wars in Sudan’s history has often been motivated by one thing: booty,” Mr Dirdiri said. "It has long been a feature of their structure that the tribal leaders hoard wealth and the soldiers are left to fend for themselves by robbing civilians."

Despite the SAF’s recent gains, fierce fighting continues in the capital and it remains to be seen whether the army will be able to consolidate its recent victories and end the war.