Driving through gunfire with her four young children in the back of the car, the escape route from war-torn Sudan was anything but easy for Jennifer McLellan.
It was a ‘last minute’ decision to rush to Wadi Seidna Air Base – as she had only just received a call from officials confirming they could board a flight to Cyprus after asking a Scottish MP to asked for help.
Accompanied by her husband Mohamed and brother-in-law, the 36-year-old teacher from Islay, Scotland, endured a terrifying journey through Khartoum to asylum.
She said at Larnaca airport yesterday: ‘We were driving on very dangerous roads and then our tire burst. We had no spare wheel… My brother-in-law stopped a bus with two young men who agreed that we would pay SDG 200,000 (about £267) to take us to the airbase.
“They were just random and we were terrified. They’d just seen an opportunity — people were stranded and they could make money off it.”
The escape route from war-torn Sudan was anything but easy for Jennifer McLellan
A Royal Air Force plane with British evacuees from Sudan is stationed at Larnaca International Airport
But Ms. McLellan, who has lived in Sudan for several years, was to experience even more turmoil before her flight.
She added, “We went through neighborhoods because we were in the area, so we were able to avoid a lot of things — but when they got to the bridge, we got caught in gunfire… We were on the other side of the road and the bus driver just put his foot down and went so fast and then we got to the bridge and had to drive on the wrong side of the bridge.”
Thousands of Britons were still trying to escape from Sudan last night.
And while hundreds had successfully fled the country, not everyone was quick to praise the government for its efforts.
Hours of waiting at airports, lack of contact from British officials and bureaucratic forms to register their presence in the country are among the most common complaints.
The British High Commissioner for Cyprus has since confirmed that the online forms are no longer needed to escape and encouraged British nationals who wanted to escape to come to the airbase.
But when asked why Britain was not escorting terrified civilians to the airbase, High Commissioner Irfan Siddiq said it was ‘not feasible’ and officials should ‘look’ at the safety of their own ‘people on the ground’.
Yesterday, nervous families at Stansted Airport anxiously watched arrival signs.
Many said State Department staff had not told them when their loved ones’ planes would land or where they would meet them.
Some held bunches of flowers, others held sacks of food to give when they arrived.
Faida Nemar, from Acton, west London, was on the first flight from Sudan on Tuesday.
Accompanied by her husband Mohamed and brother-in-law, the 36-year-old teacher from Islay, Scotland, endured a terrifying journey through Khartoum to asylum.
She was staying with her daughter in Khartoum when the war started.
She held a suitcase and cried as she remembered the devastation.
Ms. Nemar said, “They bomb all the time, just boom, boom, all the time. The house shakes.
“I saw burned houses, burned cars, I didn’t see them, but some people say they saw bodies.”
Meanwhile, Mohamed El Amein hugged his young daughters at the airport in an emotional reunion.
She said at Larnaca airport yesterday: ‘We were driving on very dangerous roads and then our tire punctured’. In the photo: evacuees at the airport
Lamar, 4, and Lujain, 6, go to school in Sudan and were staying with their grandparents at the start of the school holidays when the war started. They had to be evacuated with a friend of the family – their grandparents were left behind.
He cried with relief as his daughters, seemingly unfazed, waved to cameras.
Mr. El Amein said, “It was very difficult for them … our only option was to bring them here to a safe place.”
