With days left until a deadline set by the Sudanese army for “foreigners” to leave capital city Khartoum, refugees who already fled wars and dictatorships in other countries say they are not being granted safe passage, and are worried they could be killed or disappeared.
An Ethiopian refugee in south Khartoum, who asked not to be named for his own safety, told The Irish Times they are desperate for humanitarian organisations to aid them with safe corridors and somewhere to go.
“We are waiting for humanitarian service,” he said, communicating through WhatsApp messages. “If they don’t come here we [are] all going to die.”
Local media reports that the Sudanese army issued a directive, nearly a fortnight ago, saying the ultimatum to leave within 15 days is to prevent “foreigners” from being harmed, amid reports that some have been involved in fighting with the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group against the army.
When asked by The Irish Times about whether safe routes out will be enabled, a Sudanese army official responded: “you may have sent this message to the wrong person. I do not have the authority to set a time for anyone to leave any place.”
The Ethiopian refugee, who is officially registered with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), said other Ethiopians had tried to leave Khartoum but seemingly disappeared along the route. “Many refugees were taken away and [their] whereabouts is not known. Therefore [other] refugees fear to leave Khartoum,” he said.
“We are trapped. There are no humanitarian organisations around us to appeal to ... Refugees are not birds [who can] fly out.”
Representatives for the ICRC and UNHCR did not respond to requests for comment.
Mathilde Vu, advocacy manager with the Norwegian Refugee Council, which works with refugees in other parts of the north African country, said that while “Sudan is already a neglected crisis ... the plight of refugees inside Sudan is even more. It is often ignored that Sudan used to be a country of asylum – now it has turned into a war zone. Refugees are literally trapped in an impossible limbo. The fighting in Sudan destroyed their homes in Khartoum and now the front lines are getting closer to the refugee camps in the East and Southern border.”
She said “South Sudanese, Ethiopian, [and] Eritrean refugees have nowhere to flee: most cannot go back to their country of origin where they would face threat[s]. The degradation of the asylum space in Sudan since the war is a real concern, there are increasing reports of detention, harassment and even deportation of refugees – this needs way more attention.”
Before the current war, which began in mid-April 2023, there were around 309,000 refugees and asylum seekers from other countries living in Khartoum, according to UNHCR. Many were hoping to be chosen for legal resettlement to western countries, but the number of spaces on offer was low – with UN figures showing that only 1,361 refugees resettled from Sudan over the previous four years.
More than 10 million people – roughly 20 per cent of Sudan’s population – have been displaced by the current war, turning it into what the UN calls the world’s largest displacement crisis. Nearly 7.8 million of them are internally displaced, while more than 2.2 million have fled to other countries, according to the latest report by the UN’s International Organisation for Migration. Another 2.8 million people were already displaced before the current war.
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