Brit gran, 88, forced to pay £45,000 to cross border after sleeping on cardboard
A British family fleeing war-torn Sudan have been forced to pool their life savings of $60,000 (£47,500) together to reach safety after the government abandoned them.
The family of seven, including an 88-year-old Kent-born grandma and her three grandchildren under 10, managed to escape the fighting in the capital Khartoum and reached the Sudan-Egypt border town of Wadi Halfa.
They spent four days sleeping on cardboard there before cutting their losses and stumping up the huge cost to reach the safety of Aswan, Egypt. From there they will pay for flights to the UK.
Only people travelling on buses with special permits can cross the border and crossing on foot is banned, meaning bus drivers are weaponising the war by charging thousands.
"It's just an astronomical sum of money. Nobody has that lying around and what about people without that money or dual citizenship? It makes me feel dreadful.
Thousands of Britons in Sudan may have just hours to escape on RAF flights out
67-year-old Farid Atabani (Supplied)"Our family had rebels on their street looting houses, with fighting just streets away.
"I don't think you can describe the conditions as anything other than diabolical. They have left everything in their home and fled with nothing", Benyamin Atabani, 18, a student at the Perse School in Cambridge told the Mirror.
Benyamin was speaking on behalf of the family. His dad’s cousins are 53-year-old United Nations worker Fadi Atabani and 67-year-old Farid Atabani. Their mother, Maureen Atabani is 88.
Fadi and his wife Salma Elmedani have three children — five-year-old Khalil, seven-year-old Abdelrahman and nine-year-old Mahmoud.
The family of seven took a two-day journey to the border town and were "eventually" contacted mid-journey by the British Embassy to make their way to the airfield.
People walk among scattered objects in the market of El Geneina (AFP via Getty Images)Benyamin continues: "But at that point, it was too late they were already over a day and a half away in the opposite direction.
"The lack of effort from the British government has been dreadful. Especially if you compare it to the visa scheme for Ukrainians for instance.
"I think that was entirely necessary, but I want Sudanese to be afforded the same privileges."
They're all British passport holders other than Salma, who, Benyamin says, has been advised to fly to the UK and then have her case put to the discretion of an immigration officer upon arrival in the UK.
Benyamin continued: "How can a British person's wife not be guaranteed a place in the UK? She's taking a huge risk and spending so much money by making this journey."
NHS doctor shot in leg while rescuing mum and daughter from Sudan chaos
Brits boarding an RAF aircraft in Sudan (MOD/AFP via Getty Images)The UK has been criticised for lagging behind Germany and France in rescuing civilians as well as being very slow to deliver advice and communication to its citizens once the war broke.
Benyamin continued: "Making an 88-year-old woman sleep on a piece of cardboard for four days in a row is just horrendous. I don't think there's any other way to describe it.
"I think you're very likely to see an influx of Sudanese trying to cross the channel now. And that's entirely avoidable. There are no legal routes for Sudanese to enter the UK. They don't exist."
The conflict has so far killed 550 people, including civilians, and wounded more than 4900.
The fighting has displaced at least 334,000 people inside Sudan, and sent tens of thousands more to neighbouring countries — Egypt, Chad, South Sudan, the Central African Republic and Ethiopia, according to UN agencies.
More than 42,000 Sudanese who fled the war in their country have crossed into Egypt along with 2,300 foreign nationals since the crisis began, according to the UN refugee agency.
Today, the fighting continued in and around Khartoum. Clouds of smoke were seen over areas of active fighting, and residents-hiding in their homes-still heard sounds of explosions.
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