Evacuees, Refugees from Sudan Catch Their Breath in Egypt’s Abu Simbel

Vehicles transporting evacuees and refugees are seen at Abu Simbel. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Vehicles transporting evacuees and refugees are seen at Abu Simbel. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
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Evacuees, Refugees from Sudan Catch Their Breath in Egypt’s Abu Simbel

Vehicles transporting evacuees and refugees are seen at Abu Simbel. (Asharq Al-Awsat)
Vehicles transporting evacuees and refugees are seen at Abu Simbel. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Egypt’s Abu Simbel city has become a temporary resting place for refugees and evacuees from Sudan that has been gripped by fighting between its army and Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

Abu Simbel is one of the rest stops for droves of buses and vans of evacuees making their journey from Sudanese areas to Egypt. Once they enter Egypt, they will make yet another journey to Cairo where they can be flown home.

Islam, 4, is one of ten children on a bus from Khartoum. The children are unaware of the circumstances that forced their families to hastily leave Khartoum and to spend a couple of days at the Egyptian and Sudanese borders before being allowed to continue their journey to safety.

A bus driver, Mohammed, has been working the Khartoum-Aswan route since 2019. He spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat about how the evacuees and refugees are being exploited to make the crossing to Egypt.

The prices of all goods have doubled, forcing some Sudanese families to bring their own food and water from Khartoum, he revealed, while also noting he “modest” services on the Sudanese side of the border.

On his latest journey, he said that he drove the bus some 900 kilometers inside northern Sudan towards the Argeen crossing. However, the heavy flow of refugees forced him to change routes and head to Wadi Halfa and then Egypt’s Qastal port.

“We were forced to remain at the crossing for two days due to the massive number of refugees,” he remarked.

Mustafa Othman is a Sudanese university student living in Saudi Arabia. Exhausted, he said he hadn't slept for an entire week.

“This whole week has felt like a year,” he told Asharq Al-Awsat.

He was accompanying his father on a visit to Khartoum when the conflict erupted. The fighting forced the suspension of flights out of Khartoum, and he sought an alternative option with his father that would take him to Saudi Arabia from Egypt.

Before the conflict, Abu Simbel was a quiet tourist destination of some 10,000 residents. Now, it has become a transit point for refugees and evacuees.

Asharq Al-Awsat caught up with an Indian family that was resting in Abu Simbel before heading to Aswan city. They have booked a flight from Cairo to Mumbai.

The head of the family worked as an English teacher in Khartoum. “We sought the fastest way back home and found Egypt to be the best route in spite of the influx at the borders,” he told Asharq Al-Awsat.

Taxi and private car drivers have exploited the influx by raising their fares. Before the crisis, a fare would have cost some 2,000 Egyptian pounds (1USD is equivalent to 31 Egyptian pounds). Now, a journey across the Argeen or Qastal crossings costs 5,000 pounds.

Abu Simbel International Hospital has also received patients suffering from chronic diseases. Among them is Zeinab, 65, who had suffered a stroke during the holy fasting month of Ramadan.

Her daughter told Asharq Al-Awsat that they fled Khartoum two days ago and were transported by private ambulance to Wadi Halfa. An Egyptian ambulance took them to Egypt through the Qastal crossing.

The daughter said that once her mother receives a health check, the pair will head to Cairo to reunite with her brother who has been living in the capital for five years.

Hospital Director Mohammed Abu Wafa told Asharq Al-Awsat that facility was prepared to receive more patients among the refugees.

It has so far treated people who have suffered from exhaustion and complications from chronic diseases, especially among the elderly. They will head to Aswan as soon as they receive the necessary health care.



Crops Wither in Sudan as Power Cuts Cripple Irrigation

FILED - 27 August 2024, Sudan, Omdurman: Young people walk along a street marked by destruction in Sudan. Photo: Mudathir Hameed/dpa
FILED - 27 August 2024, Sudan, Omdurman: Young people walk along a street marked by destruction in Sudan. Photo: Mudathir Hameed/dpa
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Crops Wither in Sudan as Power Cuts Cripple Irrigation

FILED - 27 August 2024, Sudan, Omdurman: Young people walk along a street marked by destruction in Sudan. Photo: Mudathir Hameed/dpa
FILED - 27 August 2024, Sudan, Omdurman: Young people walk along a street marked by destruction in Sudan. Photo: Mudathir Hameed/dpa

Hatem Abdelhamid stands amid his once-thriving date palms in northern Sudan, helpless as a prolonged war-driven power outage cripples irrigation, causing devastating crop losses and deepening the country's food crisis.

"I've lost 70 to 75 percent of my crops this year," he said, surveying the dying palms in Tanqasi, a village on the Nile in Sudan's Northern State.

"I'm trying really hard to keep the rest of the crops alive," he told AFP.

Sudan's agricultural sector -- already battered by a two-year conflict and economic crisis -- is now facing another crushing blow from the nationwide power outages.

Since the war between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces began in April 2023, state-run power plants have been repeatedly targeted, suffering severe damage and ultimately leaving farms without water.

Like most Sudanese farms, Abdelhamid's depends on electric-powered irrigation -- but the system has been down "for over two months" due to the blackouts.

Sudan had barely recovered from the devastating 1985 drought and famine when war erupted again in 2023, delivering a fresh blow to the country's agriculture.

Agriculture remains the main source of food and income for 80 percent of the population, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).

Now in its third year, the conflict has plunged more than half the population into acute food insecurity, with famine already taking hold in at least five areas and millions more at risk across conflict-hit regions in the west, center and south.

The war has also devastated infrastructure, killed tens of thousands of people, and displaced 13 million.

A 2024 joint study by the United Nations Development Programme and the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) found that nearly a third of rural households have lost irrigation and water access since the war began.

Without electricity to power his irrigation system, Abdelhamid -- like thousands of farmers across the country -- was forced to rely on diesel-powered pumps.

But with fuel scarce and prices now more than 20 times higher than before the war, even that option is out of reach for many.

"I used to spend 10,000 Sudanese pounds (about four euros according to the black market rate) for irrigation each time," said another farmer, Abdelhalim Ahmed.

"Now it costs me 150,000 pounds (around 60 euros) because there is no electricity," he told AFP.

Ahmed said he has lost three consecutive harvests -- including crops like oranges, onions, tomatoes and dates.

With seeds, fertilizers and fuel now barely available, many farmers say they won't be able to replant for the next cycle.

In April, the FAO warned that "below average rainfall" and ongoing instability were closing the window to prevent further deterioration.

A June study by IFPRI also projected Sudan's overall economic output could shrink by as much as 42 percent if the war continues, with the agricultural sector contracting by more than a third.

"Our analysis shows massive income losses across all households and a sharp rise in poverty, especially in rural areas and among women," said Khalid Siddig, a senior research fellow at IFPRI.