Rawan al-Waleed was expecting to fly from Khartoum to Cairo last week for a wedding. Instead, she ended up travelling from Sudan to Egypt in a bus her family chartered to escape a war.
"It is still very scary because you don't feel safe. It was a very long road. I have my grandmother, who is very old, this was very exhausting for her."
The bus was among the first carrying Sudanese displaced by the fighting to arrive at the Egyptian border on Friday. Border guards were flexible, Waleed said, waving through people whose passports were about to expire and even some men just over the age of 16, as security rules say adult men need a visa to enter Egypt.Waleed is relieved to be away from the fighting, but she left behind friends and relatives including her adult brother.
"We didn't know if he will be able to cross the border," she said in an interview at a residential compound where she is staying in Giza, across the Nile from Cairo. Since internet and phone connections have become increasingly unreliable, she has sometimes had to contact neighbours to check up on him. "He is alone, without electricity, water or food. We don't know what is happening with him," Waleed said.
The violence was triggered as the army and the RSF, which jointly staged a coup in 2021, negotiated over a plan for a new transition to civilian rule. Hundreds have been killed and tens of thousands have fled. "We wanted civilian rule," said Waleed. "We are innocent, our homes are destroyed while the head of the military council and his deputy are fighting, and we have nothing to do with this."heading northWhen Waleed's family arrived in Cairo they heard children letting off firecrackers to celebrate the holiday of Eid al-Fitr that falls at the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
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