Sudanese Fleeing Clashes Flood Port City, Borders with Egypt

In this photo released by the UK Ministry of Defence the last evacuees and military personnel board an RAF aircraft bound for Cyprus from Wadi Seidna Air Base in Sudan, April 29, 2023. (PO Phot Arron Hoare/Uk Ministry of Defence via AP)PO PHOT ARRON HOARE
In this photo released by the UK Ministry of Defence the last evacuees and military personnel board an RAF aircraft bound for Cyprus from Wadi Seidna Air Base in Sudan, April 29, 2023. (PO Phot Arron Hoare/Uk Ministry of Defence via AP)PO PHOT ARRON HOARE
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Sudanese Fleeing Clashes Flood Port City, Borders with Egypt

In this photo released by the UK Ministry of Defence the last evacuees and military personnel board an RAF aircraft bound for Cyprus from Wadi Seidna Air Base in Sudan, April 29, 2023. (PO Phot Arron Hoare/Uk Ministry of Defence via AP)PO PHOT ARRON HOARE
In this photo released by the UK Ministry of Defence the last evacuees and military personnel board an RAF aircraft bound for Cyprus from Wadi Seidna Air Base in Sudan, April 29, 2023. (PO Phot Arron Hoare/Uk Ministry of Defence via AP)PO PHOT ARRON HOARE

Sudanese fleeing the fighting between rival generals in their capital flooded an already overwhelmed city on the Red Sea and Sudan’s northern borders with Egypt, as explosions and gunfire echoed Monday in Khartoum.

Many exhausted Sudanese and foreigners arrived in Port Sudan, the country's main seaport, joining thousands who have waited for days to be evacuated out of the chaos-stricken nation. Others have been driven in packed buses and trucks, seeking shelter in Egypt, Sudan’s northern neighbor.

“Much of the capital has become empty,” said Abdalla al-Fatih, a Khartoum resident, “all (residents of) our street fled the war.”

The fighting, now in its third week, has turned Khartoum and its neighboring city of Omdurman into a battlefield. Fierce clashes taking place inside residential neighborhoods that have become “ghost areas,” residents say.

Al-Fatih’s family managed to get out of Khartoum over the weekend after they spent the past two weeks trapped in their home in Khartoum’s neighborhood of Kafouri, a major flashpoint since the fighting broke out on April 15.

They arrived in Port Sudan late Monday, after an exhausting 20-hour trip, he said. There, they found thousands, including many women and children, camping outside the port area. Many had been there for more than a week, with no food and other services, he said.

Port Sudan has become a hub for foreign governments to evacuate their citizens air and sea.

At the congested crossing points with Egypt, thousands of families have waited for days inside buses or sought temporary shelter in the border city of Wadi Halfa to finalize their paperwork to be allowed into Egypt, The Associated Press reported.

Yusuf Abdel-Rahman is a Sudanese university student who crossed into Egypt along his family, through the Ashkit crossing point late Monday. They spent their night at a community hostel in Egypt’s southern city of Aswan, and plan to board a train to Cairo later Tuesday, he said.

Abdel-Rahman’s family went first to the Arqin crossing point over the weekend. It was overcrowded and they couldn’t reach the customs area. They then decided to move to the Ashkit crossing after they heard from people there that the crossing would be easier, he said.

“It’s a chaotic situation (in Arqin),” he said over the phone. “Women, children and patients are stranded in the desert with no food, no water.”

Abdel-Rahman reported widespread destruction and looting particularly in upscale neighborhood in the capital. He said a neighbor told them by phone said armed men in RSF uniform stormed their home in Khartoum’s Amarat neighborhood on Friday, a day after they fled the capital. Many Sudanese have taken to social media to complain that their homes were stormed and looted by armed men.

“We are lucky” that they didn’t at home at the time of storming,” he said. “We could be ended up dead bodies.”

Tens of thousands have already fled Sudan to neighboring countries, including Egypt, Chad, South Sudan, Central African Republic and Ethiopia. And the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi warned that the number could surpass 800,000.

“We hope it doesn’t come to that, but if violence doesn’t stop we will see more people forced to flee Sudan seeking safety,” he wrote on Twitter Monday.

Early Monday sounds of explosions and gunfire echoed though many parts of the capital, with fierce clashes taking place around the military’s headquarters, the international airport and the Republican Palace in Khartoum, residents reported. The military’s warplanes were seen flying overhead across the capital, they said.

The fighting has come despite both sides declared Sunday a second, three-day extension of a humanitarian cease-fire to allow safe corridors for healthcare workers and aid agencies working in the capital.

“The war never stopped,” said Atiya Abdalla Atiya, Secretary of the Doctors’ Syndicate. “Doctors can’s move safely. Hospitals were still occupied.”

Morgues across the capital are overcrowded with dead bodies and people were still unable to collect their dead to bury, he said. Many injured also did not have access to hospitals, he added.



US to Impose Sanctions on Sudan After Finding Government Used Chemical Weapons 

People transport their belongings as they return to Salha, south of Omdurman, two days after the Sudanese army recaptured it from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), on May 22, 2025. (AFP)
People transport their belongings as they return to Salha, south of Omdurman, two days after the Sudanese army recaptured it from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), on May 22, 2025. (AFP)
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US to Impose Sanctions on Sudan After Finding Government Used Chemical Weapons 

People transport their belongings as they return to Salha, south of Omdurman, two days after the Sudanese army recaptured it from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), on May 22, 2025. (AFP)
People transport their belongings as they return to Salha, south of Omdurman, two days after the Sudanese army recaptured it from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), on May 22, 2025. (AFP)

The United States said on Thursday it would impose sanctions on Sudan after determining that its government used chemical weapons in 2024 during the army's conflict with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, a charge the army denied.

Measures against Sudan will include limits on US exports and US government lines of credit and will take effect around June 6, after Congress was notified on Thursday, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said in a statement.

"The United States calls on the Government of Sudan to cease all chemical weapons use and uphold its obligations under the CWC," Bruce said, referring to the Chemical Weapons Convention treaty banning the use of such weapons.

In a statement, Sudan rejected the move, and described the allegations as false.

"This interference, which lacks any moral or legal basis, deprives Washington of what is left of its credibility and closes the door to any influence in Sudan," government spokesperson Khalid al-Eisir said on Friday.

The war in Sudan erupted in April 2023 from a power struggle between the army and the RSF, unleashing waves of ethnic violence, creating the world's worst humanitarian crisis and plunging several areas into famine. Tens of thousands of people have been killed and about 13 million displaced.

Washington in January imposed sanctions on army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, accusing him of choosing war over negotiations to bring an end to the conflict.

The US has also determined members of the RSF and allied militias committed genocide and imposed sanctions on some of the group's leadership, including RSF leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti.

Bruce's statement said the US had formally determined on April 24 under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991 that the government of Sudan used chemical weapons last year, but did not specify what weapons were used, precisely when or where.

"The United States remains fully committed to hold to account those responsible for contributing to chemical weapons proliferation," Bruce said.