‘It brought back memories of Syria.’ For refugees in Sudan, war is a reminder of the terror they left behind

By Christian Ezaegu

Abad remembers rockets and barrel bombs tumbling over his hometown of Aleppo, a sprawling city in northwestern Syria that became the epicenter of a long-running civil war.

The retired contractor, in his early 70s, told the us that the political violence triggered in 2011 forced his family apart, leaving them “homeless.”

“We came to Sudan, we never dreamed we’d be here. It’s the only country that took us in, in the end,” he said.

Abad is one of more than 14 million Syrians who fled their homes after a brutal crackdown by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on pro-democracy protesters led to a civil war.

The conflict set off a humanitarian crisis, with Syrian refugees seeking asylum in more than 130 countries, many of them – approximately 5.5 million – living in neighboring nations, according to the UN’s refugee agency (UNHCR).

Over 93,000 Syrians settled in Sudan, the third largest group of refugees in the country after South Sudanese and Eritrean, according to the UNHCR. Syrians did not require entry permits until December 2020, when the Sudanese interior ministry imposed visa requirements on them as part of a crackdown on refugees.

After a conflict broke out between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in April, many Syrians found themselves displaced again.

spoke to several who once again fear for their lives – as they struggle to escape yet another war, this time in their adopted country. We have changed their names for their safety.

“We were living in safety and woke up to the sound of weapons and bombs. It brought back memories of Syria,” Abad reflected.

“Sudan will be divided in the same way that Syria is divided today. The Sudanese people will suffer in the same way that the Syrian people did.”