LONDON: A number of Sudanese evacuees in the UK face an uncertain future with their visas set to expire later this month.
The UK took 2,450 British and foreign nationals after fighting broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces in April.
The conflict has seen around 5.7 million people displaced, with the UN emergency relief coordinator, Martin Griffiths, calling it “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history.”
Non-UK residents were given six-month visas to stay in the UK on compelling compassionate grounds, but those are set to begin ending this week.
Azza Ahmed, a lecturer in Khartoum whose former husband is British and who is currently living in a London hotel with her son, told The Guardian: “I’m worried that on Oct. 26, I finish the six months and if nothing happens with my visa and there’s no extension, I’ll become an illegal immigrant.”
She added: “I’m so depressed, I feel like I’ve been treated as someone with no value. I’ve felt this from the very first moment — the first time I went to the council and they didn’t want to deal with me. I don’t understand, the government brought me (here) and now they don’t want to do anything to support me. Why bring us if you weren’t happy for us to come here?”
Azza Karrar, an assistant professor at the University of Khartoum, told the paper: “I literally have no place to go. My mother and father are in Egypt, but they have now refused to let any Sudanese nationals in.”
Karrar, whose husband is a British citizen and who has been staying in Preston with her three children, added: “It makes you feel like maybe you’re not important. They’ve done schemes to help people before. Why not us?”
The Guardian also spoke to British citizen Selma Bedawi, who was evacuated from Sudan 10 days after fighting broke out but who has been moved between four hotels since arriving back in the UK from her home in Khartoum.
“The pressure comes at me from every side, trying to deal with every problem,” she told The Guardian. “What’s the point of having a British passport if there’s no advantage? The only thing they did for us was bring us on the planes.”
As well as finding schools and services for her four children, Bedawi has also had to look after her elderly mother, who suffers from chronic illness, all while in temporary accommodation and receiving limited universal credit. Her husband and brothers, who are not British, are still in Sudan.
Currently in a hotel in Ealing, West London, Bedawi told the paper how she had not been given access to a kitchen and had even been threatened with eviction for using a microwave at a previous hotel, having to rely on a cooler box to keep food in.
“None of us know what will happen next,” Bedawi said. “It affects the children. One day they’re happy, one day they’re sad. It’s not like them. They’re asking more questions, trying to understand what’s happening. They ask me if we’re homeless.”
Immigration lawyer Katherine Soroya told The Guardian that many evacuees were not told of their immigration status on arrival in the UK, whether they could extend their stay, how expensive that process would be, or if they were entitled to state benefits.
“Families in this position haven’t got a clear explanation of what they’re entitled to. It’s pretty much been trial and error and lots of people trying different things with not much input from the Home Office,” she said. “It’s completely on those people to try and navigate a completely unnavigable system.”
Waleed Abdallah, an immigration adviser in the UK originally from Sudan, said Sudanese had been treated differently from Ukrainian refugees in the UK.
“If we put it in black and white, the Ukrainians were fleeing war, the Sudanese are fleeing war,” said Abdallah. “(But) they got visas before they left Ukraine and in the Sudanese case there’s nothing like that. After they arrived, they (Ukrainians) got three-year visas, which is more settled than this case, where nobody knows what happens next.”
A Home Office spokesperson said Sudanese evacuees could apply to extend their visas.
The spokesperson added: “It is wrong to set these two sets of vulnerable groups (Ukrainian and Sudanese refugees) against each other. We have no plans to open a bespoke resettlement route for Sudan. Preventing a humanitarian emergency in Sudan is our focus right now and we are working with international partners and the UN to bring an end to fighting.”
