Hundreds of Canadians remain in Sudan as country grapples with another ceasefire attempt

The Current19:45The scramble to get Canadians out of Sudan

Read transcribed audio

For Welland, Ont.'s Hisham Mohamed, the journey out of Sudan at the height of the country's conflict was dangerous and challenging — and he says he had little help from the Canadian government.

"The first day, I contacted the Foreign Affairs and I called them with the hotline," said Mohamed, who was visiting family there when the fighting broke out. "They said, 'Just register your name. We're aware of the situation and we don't have any plan yet for evacuation or anything. Just take shelter and stay safe.'"

For several days after that, "I was calling them every night," he told The Current's Matt Galloway. "They said nothing." 

Eventually, Mohamed stopped calling and tried to figure it out on his own. After three days bouncing between checkpoints on cars, motorcycles and buses, he found his way to the Sudan-Egypt border.

Mohamed, who is currently in Cairo, said the Canadian officials still haven't contacted him.

"Not even just a call [to] see how are you guys doing, are you guys making it. Nothing," he said. "Until now, they don't even know if am I still in Sudan or I'm out."

WATCH: Mélanie Joly provides update on Sudan evacuation efforts

Foreign affairs minister provides update on evacuation efforts in Sudan

2 years ago

Duration 3:30

Minister of Foreign Affairs Mélanie Joly provides an update on the evacuation of civilians out of Sudan. She said that 1,700 Canadians ‘have been contacted by Global Affairs Canada,’ and of those 1,700 people, ‘550 have asked for assistance [and] 100 of them have already left Sudan.’

The country's conflict has killed 400 people and injured thousands more. There's currently a 72-hour ceasefire in the country; it's the country's fifth attempt at pausing the fighting.

Canada has removed its diplomats from Sudan, but more than 1,400 Canadians who have registered as being there remain within its borders.

The Current reached out to Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly for an interview, but she was not made available at this time.

"I really do fear that things are going to get quite a lot worse before they get better," said Nicholas Coghlan, a former Canadian diplomat who oversaw an evacuation from South Sudan in 2013.

Coghlan spoke to Galloway about communicating in times of conflict and his experience as Canada's first resident diplomat in Khartoum, Sudan, from 2000 to 2003. Here's part of their conversation.

In a statement, Global Affairs [Canada] said they're "looking at every possible option to support Canadians in Sudan," and that "Canadian military air assets and Canadian Armed Forces personnel have been deployed to the region." 

What impact does temporarily suspending consular services and getting diplomats out of that country have on helping the Canadians who are in that country?

Well, no question it has a big impact. 

Two or three days ago, the minister certainly had a very hard decision to make. From what I read of the timeline of events, the U.S. and the British announced they were leaving and then she had the decision: do we stay or do we go with them? 

I should say go back to my experience in Juba, [South Sudan]. We stayed, but I will admit, frankly, we stayed largely because the Americans stayed — because the Americans were our backup. We could always go to their embassy if things got really bad and they had marines as well. 

When you've got an evacuation like this, you've got the two halves of the equation. One is you're co-ordinating with your allies, getting the aircraft in, getting the availability, getting your aircraft landed in a secure location. 

But I would say the hard work is on the ground. [It's] ... communicating with your Canadians, getting them to the airport safely and processing them on board safely. That clearly is very, very difficult to do if you do not have people on the ground.

Is that why, in your situation in South Sudan in 2013 … despite the order, if I can put it that way, from the federal government, you stayed?

To be blunt, yes. We evacuated the rest of the staff and then they said, "Well, you know, you need to be on the next plane." I said, "Well, you know, we've still got Canadians here." 

Initially they said, "Well, you've only got 17." I said, "I know we've got a lot more than 17," because I would process three or four passports a week. So my estimate was probably we had over 1,000. And it turned out in the first week, we evacuated 240. 

So I made the decision to stay. But again, I had that luxury. You know, I'm the captain of the ship, but I had the lifeboat. I will freely admit that. 

I was looking over my shoulder constantly — are the U.S. staying? Of course, the U.S. ambassador was being very frank with us. They had the satellite, an aerial surveillance of how far away the rebels were. They were giving us that reassurance. 

So we did stay and we evacuated all of the Canadians who wanted to get out in the first 10 days. We then went back on a once-a-week basis as we assembled Canadians during the week, went back in to escort them on board the paperwork and so on. That went on for about six or seven weeks.

The frustration that we heard … isn't just that they're stuck there or that they don't know where their family members are. It's the radio silence that they're hearing from Canadian officials — that they're not having a sense of communication.

In a best-case scenario, what could they expect in terms of communication from the federal government?

First of all, the internet is very up and down in Sudan from what I've been reading there. There are periods when it's on, periods when it's off. 

This is not because the Sudanese authorities are cutting [access], this is because of the fighting. You know, towers are going down and so on. So ... that's a baseline problem of the physical infrastructure of communications. 

But yes, Canadians who have dutifully registered, hopefully in time, should be getting regular communications. Sometimes, frankly, those communications will only be "We haven't forgotten you. We're doing what we can, but sit tight," which, obviously, for a lot of people is very, very frustrating. It takes time to put things together.

WATCH: Sudanese-Canadian Saydah Mustafa on being trapped in Sudan

Canadian student trapped in Sudan still waiting for federal support amid bombings

2 years ago

Duration 5:02

Saydah Mustafa is a medical student trapped inside her family home in Sudan since the fighting broke out. She says connecting to Canadian officials directly about advice or evacuation efforts has been impossible.

If this ceasefire holds — and again, it's unclear as to whether it actually is — what should Canadian officials be doing to help people who are still stuck in this country who need to leave and who want to leave?

Hopefully, from what I understand, we have a plane on standby in Djibouti. That plane needs to be ready to go, as and when our allies determine it's a safe time to go. 

Here is the challenge, is … the airport, the safe location, is not in the city. It's outside. To get there, you know, even assuming you have a car, you've got to cross a couple of river bridges, you've got to go through a whole city and you've got to drive to the countryside. That is not easy. 

Juba, we had the luxury. People could basically walk to the airport or I could go out in the armoured vehicle and pick them up.

We don't have that option here. We don't have somebody with an armoured vehicle who can go around picking people up.

Q&A has been edited for length and clarity. Produced by Niza Lyapa Nondo, Brianna Gosse and Padraig Moran.