People who were evacuated to the UK from war-torn Sudan fear they will be left in limbo when their six-month visas begin to expire this week. Evacuees, who have been living in hotels or with family members since April, say they have received no information from the Home Office about their future status.
“I’m worried that on 26 October I finish the six months and if nothing happens with my visa and there’s no extension I’ll become an illegal immigrant,” said Azza Ahmed, who was a university lecturer in the capital, Khartoum, and is now living in a hotel in London with her son.
The UK evacuated 2,450 British and other nationals from Sudan between 25 April and 3 May after fighting broke out between the Sudanese armed forces and the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary over plans to transition to civilian rule. Up to 9,000 people have been killed in the violence and nearly 5.7 million displaced. The UN says 25 million people are in need of humanitarian aid. Martin Griffiths, the UN emergency relief coordinator, said Sudan had been plunged into “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history”.
New arrivals were given leave to remain in the UK for six months outside the normal immigration rules on compelling compassionate grounds.
Azza Karrar, an assistant professor at the University of Khartoum, said when she arrived at Stansted airport, she was told that the government had yet to decide what would happen to evacuees after six months. She said she had still not been informed.
“I literally have no place to go. My mother and father are in Egypt, but they have now refused to let any Sudanese nationals in,” said Karrar, whose husband is a British citizen. “It makes you feel like maybe you’re not important. They’ve done schemes to help people before. Why not us?”
The family, including three children, are living in a hotel in Preston, Lancashire.
Katherine Soroya, a supervising immigration caseworker at the law firm Turpin Miller, said the evacuees she is working with were not informed of their status when they arrived in the UK, how they could extend their stay, or what benefits they were entitled to apply for under the visa.
“Families in this position haven’t got a clear explanation of what they’re entitled to. It’s pretty much been trial and error and lots of people trying different things with not much input from the Home Office,” said Soroya. “It’s completely on those people to try and navigate a completely unnavigable system.”
A Home Office spokesperson said evacuees could apply to extend their visas but Soroya said they have not directly been told this, nor were they told that their visas were granted outside the normal rules – information they need to correctly make an application.
Soroya said applying for a visa is a long, complicated process, especially as most evacuees would also have to apply for a fee waiver beforehand to avoid having to pay up to £3,000, which excludes lawyers’ fees.
Ahmed, whose ex-husband is British, said: “I’m so depressed, I feel like I’ve been treated as someone with no value. I’ve felt this from the very first moment – the first time I went to the council and they didn’t want to deal with me. I don’t understand, the government brought me [here] and now they don’t want to do anything to support me. Why bring us if you weren’t happy for us to come here?”
Waleed Abdallah, an immigration adviser at Devon and Cornwall Refugee Support, who is originally from Sudan, said the government should have an organised plan for Sudanese arrivals, as it has for Ukrainians arriving in the UK.
“If we put it in black and white, the Ukrainians were fleeing war, the Sudanese are fleeing war,” said Abdallah. “[But] they got visas before they left Ukraine and in the Sudanese case there’s nothing like that. After they arrived, they [Ukrainians] got three-year visas, which is more settled than this case, where nobody knows what happens next.”
He said there are limited options for the evacuees. Most people cannot apply for spousal visas or visas for family members left in Sudan because applicants require a regular income and secure accommodation to do so.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “It is wrong to set these two sets of vulnerable groups [Ukrainian and Sudanese refugees] against each other. We have no plans to open a bespoke resettlement route for Sudan. Preventing a humanitarian emergency in Sudan is our focus right now and we are working with international partners and the United Nations to bring an end to fighting.”
Selma Bedawi’s story: ‘The pressure comes from every side’
The Travelodge overlooking one of London’s busiest roads, surrounded by warehouses, is the fourth hotel Selma Bedawi has stayed in since she was evacuated from Sudan in April.
From her two hotel rooms she battles on several fronts – for Ealing council to help her find housing, to find schools for her four children and to care for her 76-year-old mother, who suffers from several chronic illnesses.
A British citizen, Bedawi was airlifted out of Sudan 10 days into the fighting that had blown out the windows of the family house. The British government promised help, but she says that since she arrived in the country, she has lived precariously, overcoming hurdles to find housing and food.
“The pressure comes at me from every side, trying to deal with every problem,” she says. “What’s the point of having a British passport if there’s no advantage? The only thing they did for us was bring us on the planes.”
The family is being hosted by Ealing council in west London because her brother lives in a studio flat in the borough, which is too small to house them all. Bedawi’s husband and brothers, who are not British, remain in Sudan.
Bedawi has no access to a kitchen, relying on a cooler box to keep cold the cheese she uses to make sandwiches. In a previous hotel in Slough, the manager threatened to evict her for using in her room a microwave that had been donated by a charity.
She receives universal credit for four family members. Her eldest son and mother, Laila Bala, are ineligible. Bala’s right to remain expires this week.
Suffering from diabetes, hypertension and arthritis, Bala spends her day lying on her side, using a walker provided by a charity to get to the bathroom. “I lost everything, my home, my belongings, everything. The family is broken up everywhere. I’m so tired,” says Bala.
Bedawi’s 10-year-old twins are out of school. Her elder sons, 16 and 18, started college near Slough in September.
“None of us know what will happen next,” says Bedawi. “It affects the children. One day they’re happy, one day they’re sad. It’s not like them. They’re asking more questions, trying to understand what’s happening. They ask me if we’re homeless.”
An Ealing council spokesperson says: “Like most other London boroughs, we are struggling with a chronic shortage of housing and huge increases in the numbers of families needing emergency B&B accommodation as a result of the cost of living crisis. We always seek to support residents in need to the best of our ability, but the council is operating within a broken housing market and is under extreme pressure.”
