41 trapped Malawians back from Sudan today
The first cohort comprising 41 Malawians who fled Sudan following the ongoing civil war are expected to arrive today through Kamuzu International Airport (KIA) after 20 days of uncertainty.
The 41 are part of 82 Malawians that escaped from Sudan by road to Ethiopia as armed conflict between rival factions of the military government escalated.
In an interview yesterday, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Principal Secretary Bernard Sande said the Malawi Government deployed a Malawi Defence Force (MDF) aircraft to Ethiopia yesterday to evacuate the Malawians who fled the Sudanese capital Khartoum on April 22 2023.
He said the MDF aeroplane would make two flights between Addis Ababa in Ethiopia and Lilongwe as the group was too big to be picked at one go.
“Upon arriving in the country, they will all go straight to their homes. We settled for the MDF aircraft because commercial airlines were charging normal charter costs, but for MDF we are just meeting operational costs so it was much cheaper,” said Sande.
The MDF plane was expected to depart Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa with the 41 Malawians with a stopover in Nairobi, Kenya for refuelling before proceeding to KIA. The other 41 are expected to be evacuated tomorrow.
According to a list seen by The Nation, the 71 males and 11 females evacuees comprise 80 students and two others who were working in Sudan.
The affected students were studying at Khartoum International University of Africa, an Islamic institution of higher learning. They are on the Islamic Zakat Fund (IZF) scholarships.
The Malawians fled Khartoum for Ethiopia by road and spent three days before reaching Gondar City, about 700 km from Addis Ababa.
However, in Gondar they were trapped again for about 11 days after the area became volatile, following the assassination of the head of the ruling Prosperity Party. The Malawi Embassy only managed to move them out of the city to Addis Ababa on May 6.
Speaking in a telephone interview before departing Gondar, leader of the group Steven Chilengalenga, who is from Nsanje, described their journey as “hard and terrifying”.
“I will explain more when we finally get home otherwise there are so many challenges. We are not even safe where we are as we speak. We are at a hotel but the conditions are pathetic,” he lamented.
Representative of the parents and guardians of the stranded students, Yusuf Matumula, said in an interview they were affected when their children were in Sudan before crossing into Ethiopia.
“Good to hear that they are finally on their way back home,” said the former football administrator.
About 144 Malawians, mostly students, registered with the Malawi Embassy in Egypt will be rescued from Sudan but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is monitoring 94.
Five are reported to have used Kenya as their safe passage, two fled to Egypt, two to Chad while one each escaped to Uganda and Germany.
The intense fighting between rival generals of the military government of Sudan began on 15 April 2023 when clashes broke out in western Sudan, in the capital Khartoum, and in Darfur region. So far, 700 people had been killed with more than 5 others injured
