Sudanese families spend miserable days saving money and fuel, and hours of driving in the dark night, passing dozens of checkpoints, in order to make the thousand-kilometer journey to the Egyptian border, to escape the horrors of war in Khartoum.

For 24 hours, the Sudanese youth Omar, who spoke to AFP under a false name, remained imprisoned between the walls of his house, while the sounds of bullets and explosions rocked the Sudanese capital, preparing everything for his departure with his family outside Khartoum.

Omar said the most dangerous stage they faced was leaving the neighborhood: "We passed 25 checkpoints to get to the bus station on the outskirts of Khartoum."

At the station, they had to wait for the passenger contract to complete on their 45-person bus. He explained that the ticket price was $115 per person.

But as hundreds of desperate families poured in to flee the fighting, the amount rose to about $400, the equivalent of a Sudanese civil servant's monthly salary.

Omar added that even after buying a ticket, "some buses may wait a whole day," while drivers scramble to find fuel, which has increased in price "eight times" in the 10 days since the fighting began.

On April 15, fighting broke out in Khartoum and a number of Sudanese states between the army led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Rapid Support Forces led by Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, which has so far killed more than 420 people and wounded about four thousand.

Following a relative truce, Sudanese and foreigners in Khartoum began fleeing to safer places, and Arab and foreign countries began evacuating their citizens.

Medical student Noun Abdel Basset, 21, arrived in Cairo on Sunday, two days after she left Khartoum, "with ten of her relatives, between the ages of 4 and 70," she told AFP.

On their way out of the Sudanese capital, their bus was stopped, Abdel Basset said, "twice by the army and once by the Rapid Support Forces."

"We were worried that they (troops) would come up with their weapons or hurt anyone," she said, but she was relieved when they "just checked with the passengers and asked a few questions."

Passengers catch their breath as soon as they exit the capital and stay on the buses until reaching the Arqin border crossing with Egypt.

Abdelbaset added that there was not a single checkpoint during the 13 hours of driving. Likewise, there is no place for them to get food and water from. Only "a black road and nothing left or right".

Musab al-Hadi, a 22-year-old Sudanese student, is helping those fleeing the fighting plan their escape out of the capital and into the country.

"When we get a call from people trying to find safe passage to Egypt, the first thing we ask is if they have enough food and water" for the trip, he told AFP.
Even those who have already reached the Egyptian border, some of them had to wait hours at night for the crossing to open.

Under normal circumstances, only Sudanese women, children and men over the age of 50 are allowed to enter Egypt, where four million Sudanese live according to the United Nations, without a prior visa.

Those who are men under fifty must obtain an entry visa from the Egyptian Consulate in Wadi Halfa, in the far north of the country.

However, over the past few days, many Egyptian users of social media platforms have called on their country's authorities to allow Sudanese arrivals because of the war to enter without visas, using the hashtag "Egypt is your second home".

A local charitable organization has also published contact numbers for expatriates in emergency situations, especially those in need of infant formula or medical services.

Cameron Hudson of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington predicted a "mass exodus of civilians" once a permanent ceasefire takes effect, with "millions of people trying to cross borders" to safety.

Even after crossing the border, the road remains long to Cairo, as Aswan in the far south of Egypt is the closest major city and is located 300 km north of the crossing.

Instead of taking another bus for 20 hours to get to Cairo, Abdel Basset and her family preferred to take the train for only 14 hours, the goal being to finally be safe from the war.