Cape Town - Dodging stray bullets inside their homes with chaos on the streets, South African expatriates and others are struggling to get home as they remain stranded in Khartoum, Sudan, amid the deadly four-day power struggle that broke out on Saturday.
At least 185 people have been killed in fighting across the country.
After mounting international calls to cease fighting, the two warring generals of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudan Army who seized power in a 2021 coup agreed to 24-hour ceasefire yesterday evening.
SA expats spoke to the Cape Argus about their experiences and struggles to get home with the airport inoperative, hospitals under attack and intensifying airstrikes.
South African citizens on Monday received a message from the SA Embassy to say that evacuation will be considered when the airport is cleared.
Birgitte Davy, originally from Cape Town, has been living in Sudan for the past four years after being recruited for a learning and development manager (HR) position. Before moving to Khartoum, Davy was based in Johannesburg.
“Each day the intensity has escalated with Sudan army forces aircraft bombing the camps of the RSF.
“I was informed of an Indian national expat colleague who was killed by a stray bullet in his apartment ... Another expat colleague who went out to buy airtime had an interaction with soldiers and they confiscated his car,” Davy said.
The entire city has become strictly housebound because of the extreme danger on the streets. Due to the fighting, Davy said the water plant was damaged, leading to the water supply being cut off. Fortunately, some companies were arranging for a special security service to help access food and other essentials.
Access to water, food and electricity for some had already been cut off in their homes and they were unable to be contacted by friends and colleagues. The expats were terrified to step outside, especially as the next phase of war set in with soldiers already looting homes. Many buildings have been locked in hopes of preventing this.
A couple from Diep River in Cape Town, Demi van der Westhuizen and Andre van Blerk, are both primary school teachers and have been living in Khartoum since August last year after accepting teaching contracts with the Khartoum International Community School.
Van der Westhuizen said everyone indoors was not at too much risk, but some colleagues who live close to the action have been under a “duck and cover lockdown”, hiding under beds or tables for hours on end and congregating in a place with no windows or any exposed areas in their homes in fear of stray bullets.
“If we look out the window, we see the smoke of fires or bombs. At night we can see tracer bullets, the red streaks of bullets being shot at either the sky or around.
“The tanks on the ground were shooting for two mornings at the fighter jets flying around the city, which was incredibly loud and intense – even as far away as we are from the main action, we could hear it and our building was shaking,” Van der Westhuizen said.
Davy said: “We need to be evacuated out of the country. The fighting is escalating and no solution seems to be presenting itself. The airport is closed and the runway is severely damaged, which makes commercial flights very difficult ... We hope that when a ceasefire is announced the SA government will have a plan to evacuate us.”
Van Blerk said they were well advised by security personnel from their school regarding developments, evacuations and emergency protocols.
“We have been praying that evacuation can happen as soon as the airport is opened and cleared. We’ve also heard rumours of a 24-hour ceasefire for humanitarian work and potentially also evacuations to happen in time,” Van Blerk said.
Currently, the SA Embassy is gathering information of all its citizens in the country and the expats were hopeful that somehow plans were being made. However, concerns remained that a clear plan had not been communicated yet.
SA’s head of diplomacy, Clayson Monyela, told the Cape Argus that no other embassies in Sudan were operational and no assistance could be rendered to anybody at the moment. All were advised to stay indoors and avoid loitering.
“No one is safe if they go out ... people are being shot, even yesterday when they tried going out to get food,” Monyela said.
In a statement, the Department of International Relations and Co-operation (Dirco) appealed to the different factions of the Sudanese army to immediately cease all fighting and immediately return to the negotiation table to agree on a sustainable military and security sector reform programme as part of the final agreement towards the restoration of a civilian-led transitional government in Sudan.