A Long Journey to the Unknown
The civil war in Sudan has caused the people much suffering. The experience of a Sudanese woman called Mona is typical of what people have had to endure. Mona decided to leave her country with her baby daughter, even though she knew there was a risk of death. Mona is uneducated and had been living as an internal refugee due to the fighting. She was desperate to escape her terrible situation. Unfortunately, however, her poverty meant that the only way she could leave was on foot.
She walked a very long and horrible journey from Mapan village in Blue Nile State in Southern Eastern Sudan to Libya. After an extremely hazardous journey, she reached the border with Libya, which she crossed on foot.
I met her in Liverpool and she told me her story, the reasons behind her risking everything for her new life. She said '' I was born in a poor village called Mapan; I had grown up there. I did not have a chance to go to school because of the shortages of school places where I lived''. She continued: ‘‘the civil war in Blue Nile destroyed everything. Our houses, which were only built from materials such as sticks and grass, were easily wrecked. Most of the houses are tents, so they are easily burnt and the fire spreads through the houses quickly''.
She added the humanitarian situation in Blue Nile State was disastrous. People suffered from civil war, corrupt government, lack of food and basics needs and wants.
Mona told me that she did not know where to go when she left home, she did not know how she came up with this idea and she just walked to the unknown, heading to Khartoum the capital of Sudan. She lived with friends. The only job she could get was as a manual labourer. She spent five years in Khartoum to earn money in order to resume her journey. In that period, she managed to secure $1000, which enabled her to plan her escape.
She met a trafficker who promised to get her to Turkey and then to Europe. However, this man stole all her money. Despite her terrible disappointment,
she did not give up and insisted on continuing her journey to a safe country, away from the civil war and greedy regime. She got on a truck from Omdurman and headed to Libya. Unfortunately, the truck broke down in the middle of the desert, so she had to walk hundreds of miles across the horrific and scary desert to Tripoli. Mona said: ''Although I did not have money, I started a new, difficult journey to cross the sea in a small, unsafe and overcrowded boat. It was a highly
risky journey. We were about to drown near the Italian coast, but the Italian rescue team was able to rescue us’’.
