Metema: Seven years ago, Salam Kanhoush fled the conflict in Syria and found refuge in Sudan. But the fighting that broke out in Khartoum last month has once again forced him into exile.
The 30-year-old student is stranded in Metema, a border town in northwestern Ethiopia, joining thousands of people fleeing clashes between the Sudanese army and paramilitary forces.
He had “started a new life,” he said, and had just moved to Khartoum from Kassala in eastern Sudan when the fighting erupted.
April 15 began like any other day, he said, recounting plans to go kayaking on the Nile with friends.
But he soon began receiving messages urging him not to leave his house.
He spent over a week holed up in his home, including a few days with no electricity or water supply, before finally managing to leave Sudan’s capital, carrying only a backpack.
“I left a lot of things behind, it was really hard to take the decision to leave Khartoum because... I had to leave a lot of memories,” he told AFP.
His graduation project remains unfinished and his passport stuck at the Syrian embassy in Khartoum where it was in the process of being renewed.
He cannot leave Metema without travel documents and “going back to Syria is not an option.”
“What I have is everything I have.”
Kanhoush is not the only refugee in Metema facing a second round of exile.
Before the conflict, Sudan hosted 1.1 million refugees, according to the UN refugee agency UNHCR.
Sina, who only wanted to be identified by her first name, fled to the country in 2018 after enduring four years of harsh military service in Eritrea, an authoritarian state with a notorious policy of universal, indefinite conscription.
The 24-year-old who worked as a waitress in Khartoum said she was devastated to leave Sudan.
“I was so happy with my new life,” she told AFP, sheltering under a makeshift tarpaulin roof.
She fled to Metema with her boyfriend and his brother, the trio packing up their lives into two suitcases.
“We have no proper shelter, the water supply is not enough, I have no money.”
And worst of all, no immediate prospects for the future.
“If I go back to Eritrea I will get punishment, prison, then I will be sent back to (the) military,” she added.
Others are also in limbo.
Sara was born in Khartoum after her mother fled Eritrea for Sudan more than two decades ago.
The 24-year-old was due to leave for Canada on April 17 after her mother moved there six months earlier.
But when fighting broke out in Khartoum on April 15, her plans fell into disarray, she said.
“The situation got worse each day,” she told AFP, adding: “It’s sad, it’s upsetting, it’s disappointing.”
She arrived in Metema around the end of April and fears being stuck there for a long time, with no clarity on whether she will have to refile her application for asylum.
She has not yet been able to register with the UNCHR office there.
“They said it’s going to be a long and continuous process that is going to take months,” she said.
Mohammed Qassim, 29, left Afghanistan in 2016 to pursue further studies in mass communications in Sudan.
Five years later, the Taliban takeover of Kabul put an end to his hopes of ever returning to Afghanistan.
“I was trying to do my best to live in (Sudan) because there was no chance to go to Afghanistan,” he told AFP, sitting under a tarpaulin tied to trees.
He was preparing to get his diploma when he was forced to flee and does not see his future in Ethiopia, hoping — like Kanhoush, the student from Syria — to find sanctuary in a third country.
Kanhoush said he dreams of the day when he can return to Sudan to complete his studies and “move forward.”
“My new life? I want a quiet place away from war.”
Fleeing war for the second time: Taking refuge from Sudan in Ethiopia
https://arab.news/pz537
Fleeing war for the second time: Taking refuge from Sudan in Ethiopia
- The 30-year-old student is stranded in Metema, a border town in northwestern Ethiopia, joining thousands of people fleeing clashes between the Sudanese army and paramilitary forces
- Kanhoush is not the only refugee in Metema facing a second round of exile.
Trump: US carrying out ‘major combat operations’ in Iran
- An Israeli defense official said the operation had been planned for months in coordination with Washington
WASHINGTON/DUBAI/CAIRO: US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the United States had begun “major combat operations” in Iran, warning that there may be US casualties.
The strikes, which Trump said were aimed at destroying Iranian missiles and annihilating its navy, follow repeated US-Israeli warnings that they would strike Iran again if it pressed ahead with its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
“I do not make this statement lightly. The Iranian regime seeks to kill,” Trump said in a video shared on Truth Social.
“The lives of courageous American heroes may be lost and we may have casualties that often happens in war, but we’re doing this, not for now. We’re doing this for the future, and it is a noble mission.”
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 28, 2026
Trump told the members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, Iran’s armed forces, to lay down their weapons, promising that they would be granted immunity.
The other option, according to Trump, is “certain death.”
Washington and Tehran held a series of talks in recent weeks about Iran’s nuclear ambition. The most recent one was held on Thursday with no deal.
“Iran refused, just as it has for decades and decades. They rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can’t take it anymore,” Trump said.Israel launched a pre-emptive attack against Iran on Saturday, and a United States attack is underway, plunging the Middle East into a renewed military confrontation and further dimming hopes for a diplomatic solution to Tehran’s nuclear dispute with the West.
The latest updates:
• Israeli military reports missiles have been launched from Iran toward Israel, authorities call on people to head to shelters
• Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian is “safe and sound”, state media reported.
• The Jerusalem municipality ordered schools and workplaces to close on Saturday after Israel launched strikes on arch-foe Iran
• US embassies in Qatar, Bahrain issue shelter-in-place orders for personnel
• Tasnim reports Iran is preparing for strong response to Israel
• Israeli media: We are awaiting confirmation of the assassination of a number of prominent Iranian leaders
• Iranian television has declared a state of alert in all hospitals across the country
• Israeli media said that Israel was targeting rocket launch sites to prevent Iran from responding
• The head of Iran’s National Security Committee said that Israel has embarked on a path whose outcome is not in its hands
• Explosions heard in the cities of Qom, Karaj and Kermanshah
• Explosions heard in Isfahan, central Iran
• Israeli Army Radio said air force launches second wave of strikes on Iran
The scope of the air and sea operations was not immediately clear. Iran was preparing a crushing retaliation, an Iranian official said.
An apparent strike in Iran’s capital Saturday happened near the offices of Khamenei. State television acknowledged an explosion in the area of the offices.
Israeli media reported attempts to assassinate Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian during the attacks, and have not ruled out Khamenei being targeted.
Several missiles have struck University Street and the Jomhouri area in Tehran, while explosion likely occurred in the northern Seyyed Khandan area of Tehran, state media reported. Thick smoke was also rising from the vicinity of Pasteur Street in downtown Tehran, ISNA said.
The attack, coming after Israel and Iran engaged in a 12-day air war in June, follows repeated US-Israeli warnings that they would strike again if Iran pressed ahead with its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
“The State of Israel launched a pre-emptive attack against Iran to remove threats to the State of Israel,” Defense Minister Israel Katz said.
An Israeli defense official said the operation had been planned for months in coordination with Washington, and that the launch date was decided weeks ago.
The US military declined to immediately comment on the attack.
Explosions were heard in Tehran on Saturday, Iranian media reported, and sirens sounded across Israel around 08:15 local time in what the military said was a proactive alert to prepare the public for the possibility of an incoming missile strike.
The Israeli military announced the closure of schools and workplaces, with exceptions for essential sectors, and a ban on public airspace.
Israel closed its airspace to civilian flights, and the airports authority asked the public not to go to any of the country’s airports.
The country’s airspace will reopen and flights to and from Israel to resume ‘as soon as the security situation allows,’ the airport authority said.
Iran’s airspace has been closed, Tasnim news agency reported.
The US and Iran renewed negotiations in February in a bid to resolve the decades-long dispute through diplomacy and avert the threat of a military confrontation that could destabilize the region.
Israel, however, insisted that any US deal with Iran must include the dismantling of Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure, not just stopping the enrichment process, and lobbied Washington to include restrictions on Iran’s missile program in the talks.
Iran said it was prepared to discuss curbs on its nuclear program in exchange for lifting sanctions but ruled out linking the issue to missiles.
Tehran also said it would defend itself against any attack.
It warned neighboring countries hosting US troops that it would retaliate against American bases if Washington struck Iran.
In June, the US joined an Israeli military campaign against Iranian nuclear installations, in the most direct American military action ever against the Islamic Republic.
Tehran retaliated then by launching missiles toward the US Al Udeid air base in Qatar, the largest in the Middle East.
Western powers have warned that Iran’s ballistic missile project threatens regional stability and could deliver nuclear weapons if developed. Tehran denies seeking atomic bombs.
