A junior doctor from Brighton has told of her terrifying flight from Sudan after armed fighting broke out during a family holiday.
Amie Sadig, 35, fled the “living nightmare” with her husband and four young daughters and made it home to Hove a few days ago.
Fighting broke out in Sudan on Saturday 15 April and since then more than 500 people have been killed and about 5,000 injured.
Dr Sadig said: “We woke up to the sounds of gunfire and bombing and then the whole country was in chaos.
“It was just literally a living nightmare. We didn’t know how to get out. We didn’t have any information.
“And then, when we heard that EU countries were helping British nationals, we just decided that we just needed to get our children out.
“We were lying awake at night thinking, is this it? Are we going to make it out? And it was terrifying. It was really, really terrifying.”
Dr Sadig was in Sudan for a family break over Easter and Ramadan.
The conflict started days before she was due to leave with her husband Nasir, 40, an engineer, and their four daughters. Their oldest daughter is eight years old and their youngest just four months.
Dr Sadig said: “The British government were very slow in arranging any sort of evacuation. Other EU countries were quicker.”
She said that she tried phoning the British authorities but couldn’t get through, adding: “I sent emails. They weren’t replied to.
“The decision to leave was just … it was so overwhelming. We didn’t know whether it was safer to stay or safer to leave. There was no communication.”
The Foreign Office advice appeared to be to sit tight, she said, and go out only if you’re prepared to risk your lives.
But staying put carried risks, including an airstrike on the village where her husband’s family live.
As EU countries started to arrange evacuation flights during a brief ceasefire – and with their baby formula running out – the family made the decision to flee.
