“Sanad is their lifeline”: Inside a UNFPA safe space in Egypt supporting women fleeing conflict in Sudan

CAIRO, Egypt – “There were dead bodies laying on the streets. I had to cover my six-year-old’s eyes so he didn’t see,” said Sudanese mother-of-six Hanaa Yassin.

Ms. Yassin fled Sudan for Egypt in May 2023. Her journey from Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, was grueling. She and her six children traveled for five days, transferring to one bus after another, and at one point, witnessing an attack of aerial gunfire. 

“The bus driver told us to get off the bus and everyone was screaming and running in different directions,” she said. “I was just trying to stay with my children.” 

“You cannot imagine how terrifying it was.”

Ms. Yassin is one of the nearly half a million people forced to leave Sudan as the deadly conflict enters its third month. And while fighting in Ms. Yassin’s home country presented a threat to her safety and that of her family, so too, sadly, do displacement and resettlement. 

As tens of thousands of refugees, asylum seekers and others cross from Sudan into neighbouring countries, new arrivals may face confrontations over scarce resources and – for women and girls especially – heightened risks of sexual exploitation and abuse. 

UNFPA works to empower women and girls in humanitarian contexts around the world with the support they need to navigate crises. In Egypt, meanwhile, the agency’s network of safe spaces offer recent arrivals from Sudan a place to obtain sexual and reproductive health services, gender-based violence case management support, psychosocial counseling and other essentials. 

A safe space in Giza 

Hundreds of thousands of people have crossed into Egypt from Sudan since the country’s conflict sparked in April. Many are women and girls in urgent need of food, shelter, cash assistance and health care.

“The first thing I notice in the women who come in is the state of shock they are in,” said Heba Shaarawy, case management team leader at UNFPA’s safe space in Giza, Egypt. “Not just because they witnessed war – but because of the loss of their social and financial resources and the unknown that awaits them.”

At UNFPA’s Sanad safe space, teams of case workers, psychologists and psychiatrists work to assess women’s needs and provide targeted support. More than 300 people so far have been served at the safe space.

“Sanad is their lifeline,” Ms. Shaarawy said.

It’s also a place where people can build community amid crisis. At one sharing session on 7 June, 11 women, including eight recent arrivals from Sudan, gathered in a circle to reflect on their fears and feelings. One shared she is grateful she brought her children here, as “they won’t have to grow up in war”.

Another said: “I don’t want my family to be broken up. My children and I are here but my husband is still in Sudan”. 

Rebuilding lives 

The fear shared at Sanad safe space over family separation is Ms. Yassin’s current reality. Her husband was forced to stay behind in Sudan, and since their parting, she has not been in contact with him. 

Her youngest son constantly asks when his father will join them. 

Ms. Yassin has been in Egypt for a little over a month, having arrived in Cairo on 19 May. She is one of the 250,000 people who have fled Sudan for Egypt, making the country host to the largest community of Sudanese refugees and migrants among its neighbours. The Government of Egypt is working to provide this community with humanitarian assistance, including food, health care and psychological support. 

Since Ms. Yassin's arrival, she has sought to enroll her children in school and find work so that she is able to support them – and visited the UNFPA safe space. In partnership with the Egyptian Ministry of Youth and Sports, UNFPA operates 11 Safe Spaces in six governorates around Egypt.

“I need my life back,” Ms. Yassin said. “Anything else is replaceable. But I miss my life the way it was.”