Sudanese recall Queen’s visit in years before partition

KHARTOUM: It has been more than 50 years since Queen Elizabeth II visited Sudan but there are still some who remember her tour of the formerly British-ruled territory in its first decade of independence.

In subsequent decades, repeated military coups and civil war between north and south have led to protracted isolation and partition into two independent nations.

There is not much nostalgia for British rule. Many in the rump Sudan let behind by the south’s secession in 2011 blame it for fanning the ethnic and religious differences that eventually led to the bloody divorce.

But there was genuine fondness for the Queen personally when her death at the age of 96 last week brought down the curtain on a reign lasting more than 70 years.

“I was a schoolgirl in my uniform and we were pulled out of school to greet the Queen,” recalled Khartoum resident Belqis Rikabi, now in her 70s.

Rikabi remembered that she had been impressed by the Queen’s dress and had tried to get through the jostling crowd to touch the fabric.

“One of the guards hit me very hard but then the Queen saw this and called out: ‘No, no, no’,” Rikabi said.

“He stopped and then she held up the hem of the dress for me to examine it.”

During her stay in the Sudanese capital in February 1965, the Queen stayed in the colonialera Grand Hotel overlooking the Nile, where a portrait of her still takes pride of place alongside pictures of other eminent Britons, including wartime prime minister Winston Churchill.

“The hotel holds memories, photos and records for all the world’s greatest people who visited the country in different periods, most notably Queen Elizabeth,” said the hotel’s general manager, Abdelmoneim Abdelmahmoud Al Hassan.

The hotel was built in 1902 and other visitors over the years have included anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela and US civil rights leader Malcolm X.

Though it was long ago, the Queen’s visit “has good resonance” among Sudanese people, Hassan said.