Finding Home in the Midst of War

On the evening of 29 June 2024, yet another Sudanese city became a war zone. Sinjah, the capital of Sennar, located approximately 350 km southeast of Khartoum, faced the horrors of war. Approximately 55,400 people had to flee Sinjah and its neighbouring villages as the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), who have been at war with the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) since 15 April 2023, attacked the city, expanding their control over the capital of Sinjah, according to Sudan Tribune. Rana Jamal and her family were among them. Residents, alongside already displaced residents who sought refuge in Sinjah, were now escaping to the ultimate unknown.

‘Girls, we are still alive, but they are firing and bullets are flying. We had to hide behind some trees. Please pray for us,’ said Rana in a text sent in a WhatsApp group on 29 June. Rana, a final year medical student at Ahfad University for Women (AUW), had to flee twice. First, when war broke out in Khartoum and now, Sinjah. ‘Escaping from Khartoum and the unimaginable horrors was only the tip of the iceberg compared to escaping from Sinjah,’ she said.

On the day the RSF attacked Sinjah, Rana was traveling to Atbara to finish her degree in medicine. ‘On that day, I was packing my bag to travel. University finally opened its doors after a year. I was so happy and excited. I will finally get to finish my degree and graduate. I will finally be able to pursue my dream and have a career. And on top of everything, I will be able to meet my friends whom I left for more than a year now,’ she said. 

Reflecting on the day the RSF attacked Sinjah, Rana said, ‘It was Saturday. My family was planning a small gathering to say goodbye to me before university. Too many mixed feelings at that moment. I was traveling in two days leaving my family behind and hopefully coming back with a degree next time I meet them. But before I was able to fully process everything, all hell broke loose. My mother went to visit some relatives and my sister went to buy me some travel necessities. Only me and my cousin were left at home. It was such an ordinary day. Then all of a sudden, all we could hear was bombing and bullet firings, literally out of nowhere. My brain stopped functioning for a solid minute. It felt like I was dreaming or maybe having a nightmare. Am I having flashbacks from my time in Khartoum or is this real? Where can we go now? Will we die here? Is this the end? Where are my mother and sister? Are they safe? Too many questions popped up in my head at once’.

The war left many suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), working on themselves to move on one step at a time. Re-exposure or to re-experience the same trauma over and over again is affecting the healing process for millions. 

‘My cousin wanted to go out and all I remember doing was screaming at her to stay and firing my sister’s phone with calls to check up on her. Thank god my sister answered telling me she was coming home. But is this home? We have been living in Sinjah for almost a year. We rented a house and bought new furniture we built a new life from scratch and now we are leaving everything Again,’ Rana explained.

As the RSF attacked Sinjah, Rana was already packed to leave for university. However, she had to leave it all behind. ‘We weren’t able to take anything, literally nothing. All the clothes I’ve been buying my lab coat, my scrubs, my bag, we left it all. After my mom and sister were able to come home, my uncle came in yelling at us to get out. The bombing was near and the RSF were everywhere. There was no time to even lift a thing,’ she said with a little laugh and watery eyes. ‘Thankfully, I was able to take a small bag with all our legal documents and papers and by chance and luck being on my side, my phone and laptop were in the bag too. We hopped in the car, driving with no destination, but safety in mind. At that moment, I still had hope that I would return later today or tomorrow to get my stuff. I was only left with the clothes on my back and was again, thank god, lucky enough to have an abaya in hand to wear,’ she explained.

Another mass exodus took place when the RSF attacked Sinjah. Thousands of residents from Sinjah and nearby villages such as Abu Hugar, Dinder and Wad Al Neel have been displaced, fleeing southwest towards the Blue Nile state or east across the Nile to Gedaref state, causing significant congestion on the roads connecting Sennar and Gedaref.

‘The only way out of Sinjah was so crowded with thousands of people with very confused faces,’ said Rana. ‘My uncle had to switch to another way out of the city through the woods. It rained two days ago and the roads were so muddy. The car got stuck in the middle of the woods. My uncle told us to leave the car for now and seek refuge in the trees nearby escaping from the bullets. My grandmother was not able to leave the car. She was so scared and tired. We scrunched down in the trees trying not to move or make a sound. The trees had prickles all over them. The kids were crying and we weren’t able to calm them in any way possible. And with all that going down, a family came by carrying their child who was covered with some bed sheets that were dripping in blood. My mother asked them if the boy was injured and if they needed help, they told her no. He was already dead.’

When asked what was on her mind at that moment, Rana replied, ‘Too many things were happening in such a short time. I think I will need a lifetime to be able to process every scene from that day. It was traumatising on so many levels.’

While Rana’s uncle was trying to fix the car, two RSF soldiers approached. ‘They waited for him until the car was working again, then told him to give them the keys and leave. My uncle confusedly told them that his mother was in the car and she couldn’t walk. They went to my grandmother, hit her in the face, took her phone, and kicked her and my uncle out of the car. Thank god, they were still alive after that. We were now in the middle of an active war zone with children, elderly, men and women, and nowhere to go. We walked through the prickles of the trees with my cousins crying and bullets firing until we reached the very far end of Sinjah City,’ Rana said.

When encountering civilians, the RSF have been harassing fleeing civilians, forcing families from their vehicles, and stealing their belongings and valuables such as vehicles, mobile phones, money, and jewelry. In addition, they have stormed civilian homes and looted their belongings.

However, it was not over for Rana and her family. ‘We all thought we reached safety and it was over, but little did we know. We took a 2-hour rest trying to calm my cousins and understand what was going on, what is the next step, and where we go from here, but before finding any answers the bombing started again and RSF soldiers threatened civilians to go out before sunlight. It was about 1 am, we were tired and confused, but had no time to break down. We started walking again and kept walking for almost four hours before reaching the bridge out of Sinjah, at last,’ she explained.

That was the first time people began to see SAF soldiers. ‘They  were there ordering people to keep their flashes off so the RSF soldiers could not detect them. It was pitch black on a very crowded bridge. My mother forgot her glasses and after all we had gone through, she was walking unsteadily. She tripped and fell on a rock, hitting her the chest. Until this day, my mother gets waves of chest pain. At that moment, I lost it. I lit my flash and was ready to go off on anyone who would say a word to me. I just wanted this to be over. I wanted us to be home having the most ordinary day we could have all together and nothing else. By the first morning light, we were finally out of Sinjah, leaving the place we forced ourselves to call home. The place where we tried to build a life was all gone in a matter of seconds to start the search again for a new place to call home,’ she explained.

At last, Rana and her family were able to find shelter at the River Nile State, trying to call it home. Starting life over again and forcibly hitting reset for the second time.

Rana’s story is only one of many similar or worse Sudanese stories of fleeing war in Sudan. After attacking major states and cities such as Khartoum, Darfur, Gezira and most recently Sennar, the RSF is continuing to be a threat in Sudan and continuing their control of many of these cities and states. As they do that, they continue their terror of widespread looting and human rights violations, including rape and preventing injured civilians from receiving treatment. The Sennar Observatory for Human Rights has accused the RSF of detaining dozens of patients and medical staff as human shields within Sinjah Teaching Hospital, preventing them from leaving. They also allege that the RSF is using the hospital as a military base, a clear violation of international humanitarian law.

The ongoing war in Sudan has resulted in the world’s largest displacement crisis. More than 150,000 have been killed. According to IOM, at least 9.9 million people have been internally displaced across all 18 states in Sudan. In total, some 12 million have been forced to flee their homes in Sudan, with more than 2 million crossing borders into neighbouring countries, principally to Chad, South Sudan and Egypt.   

Lamia Abdallah Ahmed is a final-year medical student at Ahfad University for Women (AUW). She is also a content writer and storyteller who lives for reading, writing, and fighting for human rights.