Brit mum and 4 kids fleeing Sudan terrified as tyre bursts amid hail of bullets
A mum trapped in Sudan with her four children has told of her terror driving through gunfire when their tyre blew out.
Jennifer McLellan, 36, and her husband Mohamed made a last minute decision to rush to the Wadi Seidna Air Base after officials called to say they could board a flight to Cyprus.
The English teacher, who has been living in Sudan for 15 years, had been struggling to stay in contact with loved ones back home in Scotland as she bunkered down with her family with the sound of gunfire closing in.
Running low on food, cash and fuel, they went on to an endure a terrifying trip through the capital Khartoum to asylum, managing to make it to Cyprus on Wednesday.
Jennifer with husband Mohamed and their four children (Daily Record)
The couple moved to Sudan after meeting at Glasgow University"We were driving though very dangerous roads and then our tyre blew out," she told the MailOnline from Larnaca Airport.
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"We had no spare tyre… My brother-in-law stopped a bus with two young men who agreed for us to pay 200,000 SDG – around £267 – to take us to the air base.
"They were just random and we were terrified, they had just seen an opportunity – there were people were stranded and they could make money from it."
Ms McLellan, who met her Sudanese husband at the University of Glasgow, faced even more turmoil before the escape flight.
She recalled travelling through neighbourhoods, which they could navigate more easily as locals, before getting caught in gunfire on the bridge.
"We were on the opposite side of the road and the bus driver just put his foot down and were going so fast and then we got to the bridge and we had to drive on the wrong side of the bridge," she described.
Jennifer is trapped in war torn Sudan with her husband and four childrenUp to 3,000 British nationals are still struggling to escape from Sudan, with growing fears that they may have just hours left before the fragile ceasefire crumbles.
Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said "sporadic" fighting had flared in the capital Khartoum, with the uneasy truce due to end at 10pm UK time.
Several hundred people, including diplomats, have been able to leave the country but many fear they have been left stranded with the main advice being simply to "stay indoors".
The most common battle appears to be the lack of contact from British officials and lengthy forms to register their presence in Sudan, leading to hours of waiting time at airfields.
All British nationals wanting to flee are now being encouraged to go to the airbase, with the British High Commissioner to Cyprus since confirming the online forms are no longer necessary.
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Ms McLellan and her husband escaped the country with their two boys and two girls, aged between two and 15.
Their lives were turned upside down when a heavy bombardment began in the capital in recent days, where Ms McLellan worked as a university English teacher.
The fighting between the army and RSF has led to violence across Sudan for more than a week.
A growing list of countries have evacuated diplomats and citizens from Sudan’s capital with the US and UK announcing they had flown diplomats out of the country at the weekend along with France, Germany, Italy and Spain.
The UK Government said it had managed to airlift diplomats and their families out of the country in a “complex and rapid” operation.
Foreign Minister James Cleverly said options to evacuate the remaining nationals in Sudan were “severely limited”.
Bombing and shooting has cut electricity and safe access to food and water for much of the population.
Convoys of United Nations vehicles have been leaving Khartoum in recent days heading east towards Port Sudan on the Red Sea but the family have not been able to leave.
Donald made contact with Jennifer on Monday after power blackouts cut all communication with the family for several hours.
Speaking at the time, he said: “She is literally stuck where she is. She managed to get in contact with me on Facebook and said they had managed to get some food and on Sunday.
"The wee ones thought the guns going off were popping balloons. Jennifer will not move out the house with the kids now.
“There’s going to be a massive humanitarian issue here for everybody. Jennifer is just one in a long line of people stuck in a terrible situation."
The World Health Organization said more than 400 people have been killed and thousands injured.
But the death toll is believed to be much higher as people are struggling to get healthcare, as most of the city’s hospitals have been forced to close by the fighting.
The UN said up to 20,000 people - mostly women and children - had so far fled Sudan to seek safety across the border from Darfur.
A Government spokesperson said: "The safety of all British nationals in Sudan continues to be our utmost priority. We recognise that this is an extremely worrying and distressing situation for those trapped by the fighting.
"We are urgently exploring all routes for British nationals to leave Sudan should they wish to.
"Our advice to British nationals continues to be to stay indoors wherever possible and contact the Foreign Office to register your local and contact details."
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