April 15 was just another day for Santosh Jain who worked as a financial head in a company in Sudan. He went to his office in a steel factory as he did daily. Little he knew his life would turn upside down within hours of reaching the office.
On that day, the war reached his city. Jain was stuck in the office, his wife, Jyoti Agarwal, was locked in the house, and his two children were stuck in the school while there were tanks on the roads. Jain and 162 workers in his factory were stuck in the middle of the ongoing war. When Indian Embassy informed him that there was no diesel for the rescue vehicles, Jain provided the fuel from the steel factory he worked at.
In an interview with Dainik Bhaskar, Jain said his day was routine. Before he left for the office, his wife had already sent the children to the school. He came to the office and started working. Soon, he heard noises from the outside. He could listen to the noises of bullets being fired and bombs falling around the factory. It was a horrifying situation for everyone in the factory. They shut the doors and hid inside two rooms. After a few hours, the paramilitary barged into the factory and looted their cash and mobile phones. They obliged to armed personnel’s demands to stay alive.
Jain said he received a call from his children’s school, which asked him to take the children back home. However, he could not do anything as he was stuck in the office, and his wife was stuck in the house. He requested a school teacher to take his children with her. He could only bring back his children home the next day.
During the time between the war started in his city and the day of the rescue, Jain and his family lived on a minimal ration that was stored at their house. He said, “I had to bring 162 families with me. I could not leave them behind. Many of them could not speak English, Arabic or other Sudanese language.”
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Jain said he received a call from the Embassy that the vehicles would reach his city soon for the rescue. It was a 12-hour drive to the Sudan Port. However, the rescue operation kept delaying for a couple of days. Later, Embassy officials informed him that there were vehicles, but it was impossible to arrange diesel for them.
Jain said, “There was a tank full of diesel in our steel factory. I thought this was more important; the rest could be figured out later. I told them to send the vehicles. All the tanks were filled with diesel from the factory, and we left for the Sudan port.” Jain said the vehicles were to reach at 3 AM but could only reach 8 AM. Soon all tanks of the vehicles were filled with diesel from the steel factory, and they started the journey back home. It took them 12 hours to reach Sudan Port and within a week.”
Jain told Dainik Bhaskar that throughout the journey to the port, there were checkpoints where all passengers were checked to make sure no Sudanese was among them. They had to hide their expensive phones out of fear of being snatched away. “We came back only with two pairs of clothes. We left everything we had built there in the last ten years,” said Jain.
The Horrifying Tales of the Sudan War
Jyoti told Dainik Bhaskar that they ate only lentils and rice stored in the house for days. There was no electricity. The weather was extremely hot, and it felt as if they would boil. She said, “Our children wanted to sleep with gates open. We could not let them. A pregnant woman living next door slept in the open. A bomb fell next to her, and she was blown into pieces.”
Jain saw a building rumble into pieces right in front of his eyes while hiding in the office. They had told their relatives in India that if they did not get a call for a couple of days, assume there was no electricity. If they did not reach out for over a week, assume they were dead.
Jain and his family are now settling in India. Their children have joined a school in Faridabad and the couple is running a start-up to sell clothes. They hope to see a brighter future in India.
Operation Kaveri
The government of India launched Operation Kaveri to evacuate Indians from war-hit Sudan. Under the ongoing Operation Kaveri, Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan went to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to manage the evacuation. Minister of External Affairs Dr S Jaishankar regularly updated about the evacuation process on social media. Apart from Indian Nationals, foreign nationals were also evacuated by India.
The Indians were evacuated from Port Sudan to Jeddah after the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) agreed to extend their ceasefire amid ongoing violence in the capital Khartoum and the western Darfur region. Indians are being taken from Port Sudan to Jeddah on Navy ships and C-130J planes, from where they are being flown to India on C17 jet planes. On April 30, Dr S Jaishankar informed that 229 Indians reached Bengaluru. On April 29, 365 passengers reached India in one batch, and 231 reached home in another batch. In a tweet, Muraleedharan mentioned that around 2,100 Indians were scheduled for evacuation from battle-torn Sudan.
Sudan war
There is an ongoing conflict between Sudan’s military and its main paramilitary force. They are fighting to take control of the country. The war threatens the stability of Sudan and the wider region. The details of the conflict can be read here. Our coverage of Operation Kaveri can be read here.
