Immigration: how Forced-To-Leave Sudanese are coping?!

By: Alaa Babiker

In the past decades many of the Sudanese people have been travelling out side of the country; to seek better life, to offer their children a better education, and most importantly to improve their living standards – as recently it was very difficult for them to afford all the living expense inside the country – also for trade and investment opportunities, treatment, and the travelling was for many other reasons.

After the 15th of April and up to this date; thousands of Sudanese families are been forced to immigrate; that goes in two scenarios; first: some families have suddenly been forced to travel to the neighboring countries like Chad, as the situation was very difficult, even some had to run on their bare feet to avoid being killed or hurt by random bullets and explosive bombs. These families are now living in campuses, school rooms and school yards, and inside houses of other families who donated some parts of their houses to receive the Sudanese refugees. This type of families still suffer the high living costs and suffer to provide education for their children. And to support them, many organizations are working very hard to try to provide just the basic needs to those refugees, like proper food and medications, which is a perfect effort, and from here I would like to praise the work of all the international organizations for standing with us through these difficult times.

The second type of families are those members who were able to leave the country after being able to arrange their travelling to other countries, but still suffer a lot because every day passes is a loss for them, they are consuming their savings, still searching for work opportunities, and many others are waiting for the end of the war to come back to their houses and normal lives in Sudan and specially to the areas inside of Khartoum State and many cities of Darfur States.

Immigration has never been very difficult, and coping to new cultures, new weather, new neighbors, new living standards all of a sudden is a serious challenge to all the families. Although many countries have helped us as Sudanese and made easier procedures to allow the Sudanese people to enter their lands and even guarantee them residence; but my advice to everyone who is been put in such situation, be patient, pray, and have a faith that very soon this situation will end.

In the end, and as usual, let us all pray for this war to end, and may Allah give wisdom to all of our Sudanese decision makers.