The Sunday Mail
Emmanuel Kafe
ZIMBABWEANS who were living and working in Sudan, where the army and a paramilitary group are presently engaged in serious fighting in and around the capital Khartoum, have thanked President Mnangagwa and his Government for reacting swiftly to whisk them to safety.
Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to Sudan, Mr Emmanuel Runganga Gumbo, organised transport for the evacuees to travel from the capital to Port Sudan.
They were escorted by a team from the United Nations.
An evacuee, Mr Watson Nyakutira, said the arduous and risky journey to the port took more than 25 hours.
“We travelled a long way from Khartoum to Port Sudan. It took us around 25 hours. It took us another 36 hours on this ship from Port Sudan to Jeddah (Saudi Arabia), a nearly 900km journey through the sea,” he said.
“We remain grateful to the President through his Ambassador, Emmanuel Runganga Gumbo, for the swift action he took to make sure we were safe. If it wasn’t for them, we would have been there or dead at most. When the United Nations came to escort people, the ambassador quickly organised a bus that joined the convoy and ferried us to the port.”
Mr Nyakutira was among the first batch of 42 Zimbabwean nationals who returned home on Friday.
The second group of 21 is expected tomorrow.
Among those who arrived on Friday were teachers and staff members from the Zimbabwean Embassy in Khartoum.
“I had never heard the sound of gunfire at close range my entire life. But it all became reality in Sudan’s capital as heavy gunfire and bombings started in the early morning of April 15. Stray bullets could be seen shelling through walls. I lost hope; I thought I was dying,” said Ms Pauline Hungwe, who teaches at a school in Khartoum.
A week into the fighting, things got worse, Ms Hungwe added.
“You could see dead bodies strewn all over as we were finding our way to the embassy. Imagine how traumatic it was for children to experience that.”
Mrs Brenda Mutandwa-Chiswa, who is also a teacher, is still traumatised.
Together with her husband, they were in Riyad — a low-density suburb very close to the centre of fighting in Khartoum — when fighting broke out.
“One minute we thought it was surreal; there were heavy bombings all over, fighter jets flying past our houses. We were very close to where much of the fighting was, the Khartoum International Airport, which had been captured by one of the armed groups,” she said.
Her husband, Mr Sydney Chiswa, said food became a luxury.
They also went for long periods without water and electricity.
“I was scared. We couldn’t go out to fetch food because of continuous gunfire, and the few shops which were open were faraway. Prices started to skyrocket and water became a precious liquid,” he said.
Ambassador Gumbo said they took advantage of the window that had been opened by a temporary ceasefire to evacuate Zimbabwean nationals.
“In the letter and spirit of His Excellency President Mnangagwa’s mantra of leaving no one and no place behind, I rallied our nationals and told them to stay ready as I was mobilising logistics to move to Port Sudan, which was relatively safe,” he told The Sunday Mail.
“The Zimbabwean compatriots had a little part to play. On Sunday morning, they would have to find their way to our Embassy by 5.30am, from where we would raise down our flag for the last time and get onto a bus that would take us to the United Nations offices for us to join the convoy.
“As they say, fortune favours the brave. We all risked our lives to get to the embassy and, thank God, no one was left behind,” added Ambassador Gumbo, who has also returned home.
Fighting broke out in Khartoum in mid-April between the Sudanese army under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who is considered the country’s de facto ruler, and a paramilitary group, Rapid Support Forces (RSF), led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
