They sat in Damascus airport’s “old” terminal in
sombre clumps of fives and tens, clutching small suitcases that
contained the remnants of their lives in Lebanon. For most, the
journey to the crowded departure lounge involved a combination of
desperate driving in rented vehicles they could ill-afford, long
walks around destroyed bridges, overnight stays on congested border
crossings, and days spent in a temporary housing facility in Syria.




Yet the 266 Sudanese nationals IOM evacuated from Syria in the
middle of the night early this week are amongst the lucky ones.
Waiting to take a charter flight back to their home country, they
are safe at last. Over 2,000 of their compatriots and tens of
thousands of other migrants stranded either in Lebanon or Syria
have no such comfort.



“We left because they bombed our apartment building in
Beirut,” says Amina Taher, a Sudanese woman who lived in
Lebanon for five years with her husband. “It was chaos
everywhere. We hired a van with other Sudanese people and just
tried to make it to the border with Syria as fast as we
could.”



Amina and her family, including a one-year old infant, spent a day
and night at the Al-Arida border crossing to Syria. “There
were thousands of people at the border, and they would not let us
through right away,” recounted Amina. “We had nowhere
to sleep. We ended up sleeping on the ground near the van,”
she added, abstractedly stroking the plastic bag filled with baby
supplies that is one of her only pieces of luggage.



Once across the border in Syria, the Sudanese were transported by
the Syrian government to temporary accommodation in the town of
Homs. In a university dormitory currently housing approximately 850
evacuees, food and medical treatment were provided by the Syrian
government and the Syrian Arabian Red Crescent.



“At the borders we had no food or drink or anything
else,” said Manahar Hussein, a mother of two. “Once we
got to the centr though, we were really taken care of. They did not
stint.”



From the housing facility, IOM coordinated with Syrian government
authorities and the Sudanese embassy to get the evacuees home,
first chartering buses to make the three-hour journey from Hams to
Damascus, and then a Sudanese airplane to take them to Khartoum.




“There are challenges every minute with this sort of
work,” points out Munzer Alnemr, the IOM team leader
responsible for the movement of the Sudanese evacuees.
“Everyone is in a rush. Some people lost their travel
documents when they fled Lebanon and resources are limited. It is
difficult to even find buses because so many people are on the
move.”



According to the United Nations, 150,000 people – 20,000 of
them third country nationals – have already fled across the
border to Syria, and the numbers are projected to double in the
upcoming week.



Perhaps the real tragedy though is that even for those that receive
help, it may not be enough. “I feel hopeless,” said
Ahmed Abdulmonem, a Sudanese labourer who used to work in
Choueifeit. “There are no jobs or opportunities in Sudan for
us right now.” Shrugging his shoulders, he says: “I
left Lebanon with nothing, and now I go back to nothing.”