'I'll be back soon': One woman's determination to return to Sudan

'I want to come back to my house,' says Dallia Abdelmoneim, whose family all had to flee Khartoum.

mud huts in the dusk with hills behind
The simple homes along the road to Gadarif [Courtesy: Dallia Abdelmoneim]
The simple homes along the road to Gadarif [Courtesy: Dallia Abdelmoneim]

On the morning of April 15, Dallia Abdelmoneim and her family realised their lives in Khartoum would never be the same again, after fighting began between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). One week, two displacements and many many stressful hours later, they arrived in Port Sudan. From there, everyone will scatter to find safety wherever they can. Here is her story, in her own words.

I’m in Port Sudan now, safe and quiet in my sister Mai’s house after nine days of unbelievable stress in Khartoum, 800km (500 miles) to the southwest. Here, on the Red Sea, there’s electricity, there’s running water, and there are no sounds of gunfire or jets flying over our heads or bombs going off. We were able to sleep a bit last night. The kids have calmed down, their resilience is amazing; they’ve managed to find space to function and are even playing right now.

I have no family left in Khartoum, they’ve all scattered to whatever safe destination they can get to. Everyone used to escape to Khartoum. Now, everyone is escaping from Khartoum.

What they're doing, these generals, it's not right - neither is the fact that we've been left to deal with them and we didn’t create them. We’re a punching bag, we’ve been the punching bag for so long. How long and how much more can we take?

Source: Al Jazeera