We were in a bunker in the basement for about an hour as air strikes were happening,” she recalled. There was bombing right around the hotel. It was clear there had been the day before a lot of fighting. “When we left, there were bodies on the street, buildings bombed out. They had to pay a black-market rate of $110 per gallon of gasoline for the vehicles. Saying she could not possibly say no to anyone, they packed 26 people, all Sudanese except for six other nationals, into four sports utility vehicles, creating a new convoy. As they waited, more people desperate to leave begged to join them. The remaining group stayed in the basement of the As-Salam Hotel in Khartoum. They detoured hoping to get to El-Gadarif (Al-Qadarif) where her NGO also had a large operation and would be able to help. Not being able to travel with a UN convoy, she said the group she was with was forced to regroup. I am not leaving my Sudanese family,” she said, referring to the growing entourage of scared people desperate to flee the violence. And when I found that out, I said that is unfair. “They (the UN) also had a mandate that Sudanese would not be allowed in the convoy. She said the UN added an additional hurdle by only allowing non-Sudanese nationals to join the UN-sanctioned convoy out of the war zone. People desperate to get out split from the group leaving her with about 20 people, mostly Sudanese volunteers and workers. So we were left stranded without transport.” So we were willing to pay a certain amount and the UN doubled it so they could take our bus in their convoy. “We were all in the hotel and at midnight the night before we were supposed to leave (but) we found out that our bus was outbid by the UN. And I was going to take 50 people, four who are international staff of mine that we were able to get from my international staff to the hotel, thanks again to the Sudanese, our guards, (who) made four round trips to get them to safety,” she said, her voice cracking with emotion. We had hoped to join the UN convoy to Port Sudan. “The evacuation plans by the international community were flawed if not nonexistent.
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