Sudan: The army we deserve.
After completing a risky drive all the way from Omdurman Al-Thawra on the 25th of April, my family and I, pull into the drive of our house in Khartoum with a great feeling of relief. We took the risky journey to be in Khartoum because I thought we will be evacuated in a similar way to the UN staff. They were collected from meeting points and bused to Port Sudan. We put down our Khartoum house as our address when we registered for evacuation. War erupted in Sudan on 15th April between the Sudanese armed forces (SAF) and the rapid support forces (RSF).
Before stopping the car engine, my phone rang, and the caller display was unknown. I immediately suspected this was the evacuation call from the foreign office. I answered the call; the voice coming from the other side had a slight African accent. They might have been calling from the center in Kenya. After greetings, the caller established that not all of my us had British passports, so he told us to wait for another call after the current advice has changed. The advice at the time was only British nationals and family members with valid visas to enter the UK would be evacuated. Despite my despondence, I clung to the words said by the foreign office lady that told my sister, when she phoned to inquire about our situation (my wife has only a Sudanese passport) we don’t usually leave mothers behind.
I decided to take the risk and head back to Omdurman to the evacuation center. I tell my family that there is a change of plan, and we have to head back to where we came from and make it to the evacuation center at Wadi Sidina military airbase. We spent half an hour collecting our documents and change of clothes for our two young daughters. We drive back to Omdurman but this time accompanied by my brother so he can return the car. Luckily for us, this car had a full tank of petrol when the war started. To avoid all fighting areas, we had to drive in a roundabout way to reach our destination. We crossed Al Manshia bridge driving toward Al Halfaia bridge. On our way, we saw RSF soldiers on the east side of the Al Manshia bridge. we also saw tens of looters carrying TVs, washing machines, packets of flour and lintel.
When we got closer to Al Halfia Bridge, we were warned by the locals that there is gunfire close to the entrance of the bridge and we were advised to take the dusty inner roads to enter the bridge. We had to detour with many other cars and all along the way, young men were advising us where to go. We reach the bridge safely and crossed over. Coming out of the bridge we were stopped by an army checkpoint. I looked around me and there were obvious signs of fighting, we can see a burnet pickup truck, a stationed tank, and shelling damage to nearby buildings and shops. That was the first checkpoint of about ten or more that stopped us or waved us through to the military airbase where we were supposed to be evacuated. The soldiers at the checkpoints were polite I guess because we were a family. It might be a different story for my brother’s return journey (it was also ok). Encountering all those SAF soldiers you can’t fail to realize that they are either too young or too old, their uniform was not uniformed, they didn’t have standard footwear, and apart from a few Kalashnikovs rifles they didn’t have any other military gear on their person, and they all looked skinny and tired.
We reached the military airbase and my brother had to head back immediately before circumstances changed for the worse. We queue with others to be processed, I notice the soldiers handling the evacuation are not just British soldiers but there were many other nationalities from Germany, Denmark, Norway, and Holland. They were all cooperating to achieve a safe and full evacuation of their nationals, while different Sudanese armed factions were killing each other, and citizens were caught in the crossfire. These soldiers flew thousands of miles to evacuate their nationals to safety.
Despite living in the UK for sixteen years that was my first contact with any British army soldier. The contrast between British and SAF soldiers couldn’t be starker. The British soldiers were uniformly dressed in full military gear, tall, well built, and all middle age. They were professional, helpful, and highly organized and everyone knew their role. Despite the heavy presence of weapons and military gear, we didn’t feel threatened, every soldier and British government official had a smile on their face. They were happy to help, they carried an elderly lady around in a chair until they found a wheelchair. They distributed food, toys, and plenty of drinking water.
We were housed in a big aircraft hangar and the temperature was extreme, my two-year-old daughter fell asleep on a bed we made out of our luggage. I used a piece of cardboard box to fan my daughter to cool the heat down. A British soldier brought over an electrical fan and placed it right in front of my sleeping daughter and gave me the thumbs up. It was a very touching moment for me because, in our collective consciousness in Sudan, we do not associate kindness with military personnel. In Sudan, there is a cultural conflict that is rarely spoken about, which is the military think of themselves as better and above civilians and they look down on Malaki (civilian) and civilians on the other hand think solders are stupid. The latter perception has changed over the years and is not strongly held as before. The military superiority is drilled into every soldier and officer in their training. The worst insult one soldier can call another is Ya Malaki. They hold this perception and prejudice because they say civilians are undisciplined and they bicker among themselves, so we can rule the country better than they do. This superiority complex is reflected in the military getting the biggest slice of the government budget, preferential treatment in many economic and commercial activities, and their military bases occupying the best locations in the capital. I am not aware of any army that is so heavily stationed in the capital of its country among the civilians than the Sudanese army. The army headquarters is adjacent to the Khartoum international airport. You can’t get more central than that.
The different experiences I had with both the British army and the Sudanese army reinforced the belief that I and many other Sudanese people have that we deserve a new military because this one is not fit for purpose. We deserve a military force that protects its citizen and come to their rescue in moments of need. Not a force that all its wars have been against its people. We deserve an army that respects, protects the Constitution, and stays out of politics no matter how chaotic it seems. We deserve a unified, national, and professional army that is light, equipped with advanced weaponry, and able to defend our borders and our national interest. An army where the soldiers are paid fairly and not exploited that are loyal only to the constitution of the land. After the eruption of this senseless war, I truly believe the days of the military appointing itself as a guardian and meddling in politics on behave of a few political elites are truly over. We should not wait until the war is over to start the conversation of what kind of army we deserve, it should start now.
Inside the hangar, we were organized into groups. After checking our passports and going through all the necessary steps our group was moved to the boarding area. When the time came, they started calling out names to board the RAF airplane. In the end, they didn’t call my name and I inquired as to why. I was told because of my wife’s Sudanese passport they needed higher authorization. So, we missed the flight and spent the night in the hangar. Luckily, we were not alone but many others had similar issues to ours. The gentleman who was dealing with us was reassuring, empathetic, and encouraging. After really tense hours of waiting that my wife and I endured, the same gentleman came to us with a beaming smile on his face. He told us the good news that they had authorization for us to be on the coming flight. I thanked the gentleman and commended him for his professionalism and understanding of our situation, he said to me everybody deserves a little bit of kindness.
We take the flight and arrive in the UK to a great welcome by the Red Cross. It is the third month into this nonsensical war, and we are still figuring out how to start over and wondering if we ever can see our homes again.
