Many challenges for Sudan refugees seeking safety in Egypt
From the scorching summer heat to war profiteers and bureaucratic foot-dragging, Sudanese fleeing battles at home have encountered many obstacles —but also help from strangers — on the long road to safety in Egypt.
Among the hundreds of refugee families waiting at the border, some had no passports.
Others would not go further until their husband, brother or son was granted a visa — which women and children are exempt from.
One woman was "sleeping sometimes on the ground, sometimes on a bus" for several days, she said, waiting for her cousin to be issued a visa by the Egyptian consulate in the border city of Wadi Halfa.
She eventually crossed together
with a few of her aunts, but "my cousin, he's still waiting," a month after fleeing their home in Khartoum, said the woman, who asked not to be identified.
Since fighting began on April 15 between the forces of two rival generals, more than 132,000 refugees have arrived in Egypt, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said on Wednesday.
More than a million others have been displaced internally in Sudan, and across the borders of other countries.
Many of those who could not flee have hunkered down in their homes without basic supplies.
For those who make it across the border to Egypt, the Egyptian Red Crescent provides care for the sick and hands out water and biscuits.
Unlike in other neighbouring countries that have been taking in Sudanese refugees, humanitarian operations in Egypt are limited.
Cairo refuses to set up refugee camps and instead says the new arrivals are given the right to work and move freely.
President Abdel Fattah El Sisi has repeatedly said his country is hosting "not war refugees" but "guests". —