Sarah Abdel-Galil, a pediatrician based in England, has become part of doctors’ campaigns to support Sudanese in chaos and terror as fighting rages outside their homes.
“We don’t sleep well because we expect the worst,” says Sarah, who texts relatives every morning to make sure they are still alive. “I try not to panic as much as I can.”
She adds that when relatives call her, fear is evident in their voices because the gunmen are approaching them.
Sara Abdul Jalil tries to juggle her need to stay in touch with her family and friends in Sudan and help others there, with raising a 12-year-old son and working full time as a doctor.
It also fights misinformation and hate speech online, sends a peace petition to the UN Security Council, and urgent text messages for medical advice while on a continent far away.
For some of the roughly 50,000 Sudanese in the UK, a sense of helplessness in the face of a situation that seems to have no end in sight has turned into a sense of duty.
The fighting, which began on April 15, has killed more than 420 people, including at least 291 civilians, and injured at least 3,700 people.
Foreign governments have widely condemned the fighting between rival factions that want to return to negotiations, while countries in Europe, North America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia have evacuated their diplomats and citizens, in a sign they expect the situation to deteriorate further.
For his part, Hossam Al-Majmer, founder of the Sudan Physicians for Human Rights, said that the organization’s doctors are trying to train their colleagues on the battlefield on how to identify human rights violations, record them, and report them to the international community.
He added, “The soldiers took their positions outside the house, but his family did not dare to look outside to see which faction was there, as they were hiding in the basement.”
Everyone heard stories of people caught in the crossfire while trying to get food or flee the violence.
“We have reports of civilians dying every day,” says Bassel al-Naim, who does not know if he will reach his cousins in Sudan. “We are just worried that one of our loved ones will be the next victim of this war.”
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