An Irish Lady left Umbedda to Home

Exclusive- moatinoon
Irelands Elinor continues to tell her story with the war in the Sudan, and how she left Umbadda in Amderman three months after the outbreak of the war. She has been worked for an international NGO and married to a Sudanese.

After three months in Umbedda, we finally made the difficult decision to leave. Our passports had been stuck in Khartoum 2, but we managed to send someone back to retrieve them. Although the situation in Umbedda was still calm, we decided to take advantage of the latest ceasefire to leave to port sudan and then onto Ireland. Every day that i stayed in Umbedda, i worried that I put my 2 children in danger, and if anything happened to them, I could not forgive myself.

Leaving umbedda was so hard. It was an emotional departure. Although at this stage i wanted to leave, I had felt safe there for three months; my daughter was born there, and my inlaws cared for me in the typical loving Sudanese style. My elder 1 year old daughter loved spending every day with her cousins. She was on the cusp of speaking arabic and already understood even more than i could.

I felt so sad to split my husband up from his family. To leave and not know when we would all meet again. To know that my daughter would not remember the close bonds she had made with her granny and aunties and cousins. To have the privilege to be able to leave the country while my in-laws would stay behind. I felt guilty because while i was sad to leave, I was also looking forward to seeing my Irish family again and for them to get to know my 2 daughters.

Tarigs cousin drove us to the bus station. It felt strange to be out after so long hibernating in the family house. Our bus, in fact, was not there and had been cancelled. After some time, Tarig returned with a man who agreed to take us privately in his minivan to Port Sudan. We passed out of Khartoum with no incident; there were many checkpoints, but all was under army control. The bus trip was 14 hours long, with a 1 year old and a newborn we were exhausted to finally reach there.

Once there, we stayed 2 nights and then took unhas flight to Amman. As the plane took off from portsudan, i felt such relief to leave and sadness for all the suffering caused by this war.
Two weeks after we left, the war also came to umbedda, and my husbands family members were forced to make the long journey to their relatives in north Sudan. We are scattered, and we dont know when we will see each other again