How the Sudan conflict is affecting Hyderabadi families

There are Indians including Hyderabadis in Sudan for whom the conflict that began on April 15 is turning out to be a matter of concern like never before

Jeddah: Even as stories of several fractured and displaced families are emerging from Sudan, where the capital of Khartoum is witnessing widespread violence, there are Indians including Hyderabadis for whom the conflict that began on April 15 is turning out to be a matter of concern like never before.

When Rafat Unissa married a Sudanese national in Hyderabad some eight years ago, she never imagined that she would one day have to return home to India, with her four children, helpless and uncertain about their future. She is one among quite a few girls from poor families in Hyderabad who were married off to Sudanese men and went to settle in the African country. Though she got married to a Sudan national, she had chosen to remain an Indian citizen, with her four children – two sons and two daughters – also being Indian citizenship holders.

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“I can’t risk the life of my children in Sudan and decided to return to my home in India,” she told this correspondent over phone from Port Sudan while waiting to be airlifted by an Indian Air Force aircraft. She was earlier deserted by her husband, after which she was welcomed and given support by the Indian Embassy in Sudan.

The family of Mohammed Ziauddin of BHEL, Ramachandrapuram is also in tatters. Settled in Sudan three decades ago, Ziauddin’s two sons had got married to African women. When the war erupted, they left for the neighbouring Eretria with their wives, who being foreigners could not be taken to India as part of Operation Kaveri.

Ziauddin decided to return to Hyderabad along with his wife and employees of his industrial pipe manufacturing plant, who were also from Hyderabad.

In another case, a man from Langar Houz in Hyderabad (whose identity is withheld), who living in Sudan for many years, had married a Sudanese woman and settled there.

His case is peculiar because, he was already married while in India and his first wife is living in Hyderabad along with their children. While working in Sudan, he fell in love with a local woman and married her. Now, even as the war is raging, he not ready to leave his Sudanese wife and return home. Neither can he bring his Sudanese wife to India since he is not sure whether his wife and family here will accept her.