Days after armed fighting broke out in Sudan, Dalia Mohamed and her mother faced an impossible choice: flee or stay in the capital of Khartoum.
With their home in the middle of civil war, the constant sounds of bullets, missiles and shelling soon became too much to bear.
On Thursday, they packed a few basic items and fled after their home was damaged in a missile strike.
“I tried to put off the idea of leaving Khartoum,” 37-year-old Mohamed told Al Jazeera. “You always hear those stories about people having to leave their homes, but it only sinks in when you have to do it yourself.”
Khartoum has traditionally been a haven for people fleeing civil wars in Sudan’s far peripheries, such as Darfur, the Nuba Mountains and South Sudan, before the latter became its own country in 2011.
For decades, civilian and military elites militarized and extracted margin resources such as oil and then gold to enrich themselves while yielding just enough to placate the citizens of Khartoum.
But now the capital is the epicenter of armed conflict between the military and a violent paramilitary force known as the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). Both set up checkpoints and clashed indiscriminately, resulting in a rising death toll and acute shortages of food, electricity and water.
The harrowing conditions have caused a mass exodus and transformed Khartoum – a bustling city of five million that now feels like a ghost town.
“It was the hardest decision I think I’ve ever had to make,” said Mohamed. “Even now, if someone told me my area was safe and we could go back… we would go back in a minute. But we can’t.”
Exit plan
Those fleeing Khartoum head east to Port Sudan, a relatively safe region with sea routes connecting to Djibouti and Egypt.
Others drive north to Egypt, although only children, the elderly and women can enter the country without a visa. Young Sudanese men aged 16 to 49 must apply for a visa one day in advance at the Egyptian consulate in Wadi Halfa, a town near the border with Egypt.
It is a requirement that threatens to temporarily tear families apart, with many preparing to say goodbye to their sons, brothers and fathers in hopes of reuniting with them soon.
Roads to Egypt are also not entirely safe after reports of RSF fighters robbing and looting cars at gunpoint, several people who made the trip told Al Jazeera.
The ambivalent security situation has made coordinating an escape a nightmare.
Shaima Ahmed is in London trying to convince her parents and siblings to leave Khartoum. The 27-year-old said it is difficult to advise her family from abroad.
“Can’t give [my family] credible information is stressful. I urge them to go [to Egypt] but I don’t want to push them too much. But if anything happens to them, it’s my fault,” Ahmed said.
Raga Makawi, a Sudanese-British citizen who was visiting her family in Khartoum when the war broke out, added that the logistics are not easy.
With bus stations empty and small vehicles ill-equipped for the journey, she said families should try to find buses themselves, as well as drivers who know how to avoid RSF checkpoints.
“As of an hour ago, a big bus from Khartoum to Cairo costs $10,000,” Makawi told Al Jazeera the night before she left for Egypt. ” [A bus] was only $4,000 a few days ago. But anyone can ask what they want and people will pay to… save their lives.”
Stay behind
The war in Khartoum also separates families as some choose to stay behind while their loved ones leave.
Dania Atabani, 23, said her parents, aunt and cousins have all left town, but she has decided to stay and look after and help her grandparents where she can.
She said she can now barely recognize her city, which was once the source of so many memories and the heartbeat of a nationwide pro-democracy movement.
“Khartoum changed from a city where we would clean [people’s] wounds from tear gas canisters until now [people] CPR and try to stop them bleeding [to death]’ said Atabani.
“I miss being a normal 23 year old with dreams and not running [away] from tanks, while we constantly have to save lives,” she added.
Other young people, such as 26-year-old Sammer Hamza, are still unsure whether they will leave or stay. The clashes in her area continue to escalate, making it dangerous to go outside.
But even if it becomes safe to escape, she said leaving her home — and city — will be the hardest choice she’s ever had to make.
“I don’t really want to leave my house,” she told Al Jazeera, holding back tears on the phone. “I hoped that A [war] would never happen in Sudan. I was hoping that one [war] would never happen in Khartoum.”