How I Fled Sudan’s Civil War
In the late 1970s, I left Sudan to study political science in Vancouver. I wanted to become a diplomat and send money back home. Instead, I ended up driving cabs and working long hours for little pay. It was a lonely time. By the time I became a Canadian citizen in 1982, my dream of diplomacy had faded away as I struggled to make ends meet.
After 14 years in Canada, I returned home to be with my family again. Soon after arriving, I married my wife, Lubna. We settled in a northern suburb in Khartoum, and I inherited my father’s hardware store. We had two daughters and shared a large house with relatives. We were content.
Everything changed in April of 2023. Civil war erupted between General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the de facto head of the country, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. Khartoum became a battlefield. Blackouts darkened our neighbourhood, and we regularly heard gunfire and missiles exploding. Some mornings, we found bullets scattered in our yard. Our once-bustling street emptied as people fled.
When Canada announced it would evacuate its citizens, I realized it was my family’s best chance to get out. My daughters were Canadian citizens by descent. And Lubna, who only had a Sudanese passport, was allowed to come with us on a temporary visa. We left everything behind: our home, possessions, friends and family. We could only bring what we could fit in a small plastic bag. The Canadian government arranged our evacuation, but we had to take on a $5,400 high-interest loan to cover the costs of their rescue efforts. We knew we had no choice. We wanted to be safe.
On April 29, we headed to an air base northwest of Khartoum and boarded a Canadian military cargo plane. There were no seats for us or the other refugees, so we were strapped in with ropes, tethered like sheep. My daughters cried as we fled the only home they had ever known.
Our journey took us through Djibouti, Kenya and France before we finally landed in Toronto in May of last year. There, we were taken to a city-run refugee shelter, where we’ve been living ever since. Our new home is a cramped, 130-square-foot room with two bunk beds. The residents are friendly, and the building supervisor is nice. But the shelter is undergoing major renovations, and it’s noisy during the day. It’s also infested with insects and mice—we’ve set up numerous traps, but they don’t seem to work. No matter how clean we keep our room, the problem persists. And privacy is impossible: in our tiny space, we feel like we’re all on top of each other. To escape, I often take long walks outside or pass the time at a nearby Tim Hortons.
The adjustment has been hard. My daughters, who are 21 and 19 years old, spend hours on their phones every day, checking on friends in Sudan or scattered across the globe. They’re in school—Doha is training to become a medical radiation technologist, and Dania is studying engineering. Lubna, once a high-level manager in Sudan, is learning English, but with only a temporary visa, she can’t work. Her application for permanent residency has dragged on for nearly 18 months, with no end in sight.
As for me, I’m 68 years old, so my options are limited. I’m not physically able to do manual labour or retail work, and I’m not qualified for other jobs. We survive on my Canadian Old Age Security pension of about $2,000 a month, which only covers our basic necessities. It also took me nearly three months’ worth of my pension to pay off the evacuation loan.
I’m relieved my family is safe. But I often think of home with profound sadness. Sudan has been crippled by decades of military rule. I don’t blame any Sudanese person for leaving, but if none of us return after the war ends, then who will help rebuild our country? I can’t dwell on these thoughts. My daughters deserve a better future. For now, our new life begins here, in this country that has given us a chance to start over.
